Hirudinea
by gintokiu
Summary: The sun is setting, and it's not like he's going to burst out in flames when his skin gets a little UV rays on it, it's just irritating as hell. This time is no different, and he swoops into Otose's bar before the kids can realize he's down there. He feels bad, he really does, but there's nothing he can do about it. "Look here, back from the dead at last."
1. Chapter One

Ah, it was hot.

Unbelievably so, actually.

Painstakingly hot.

Curse this summer heat. And the sun. And his stupid skin.

"Gin-san! You're awake! This is a first… in what? A week?" Shinpachi says, taking his shoes off at the door, groceries swinging from his wrist. Shinpachi gets nothing in reply other than a grunt, and Gintoki just flops back over, pillow covering up his head. "Why don't I open up the blinds, maybe the sunlight will wake you up a little bit!"

"No! No! _No!_ I'm awake!" Gintoki hops to his feet, a grin across the boy's lips. There was no evil intention behind that smile, he knew there wasn't, but the way it shined still mocked him all the same. Gintoki brushed the wrinkles out of his favorite green pajamas and oh, he was still holding the pillow.

"Aw, don't be like that, Gin-san. Sunlight is good for you, you know?"

"Too bright. Sensitive eyes." He pulls down his eyelid, sticking his tongue out at the boy. "The sun is going to set soon anyways."

Shinpachi sighs, giving up on the blinds and going into the kitchen to put up the groceries. "Speaking of which," he calls out, "where's Kagura-chan?"

"Dunno, the dog isn't here so I would imagine she took it for a walk." Gintoki plops right back down in the same spot he was in before, turning on the television to a boring soap opera.

Shinpachi lets the conversation drop between them, mindlessly cutting up the fish he'd just bought for dinner to put them in the soup he was going to make. "So, when's the next job?"

"Tonight."

"Of course it would be, you never take any jobs during the day anymore."

"Too damn hot outside!" He whines, the façade necessary for their safety― and his own. It never was easy, and he knew it was never going to be.

"You say that everytime! Just borrow Kagura-chan's umbrella! We need money to eat, Gin-san!"

"The jobs I take on during the night are way too dangerous for you kids to handle anyways." Gintoki states matter of factly, however the last job he'd taken was delivering booze to a coworker party that needed more. Not that that was dangerous, he just couldn't risk the kids seeing something they're not supposed to. Therefore he had to keep them thinking he was a sensitive and lazy bastard with a terrible sleep schedule, although that might not be too far from the mark.

Just then, the door slides open and Kagura returns with the dog in tow. "Ah, Gin-chan's awake!"

"Yeah, yeah. Put it on ya damn calendar." He flips through the channels, his angel should be on giving the evening news soon… Meanwhile, Shinpachi calls out something about giving him a minute for the dinner to be done and Gintoki's already making plans about how he's going to get out of this one. Maybe he should just leave for the job early, but then the damn sun's still setting. And he'd miss Ketsuno Ana. He sighs, pillow being thrown over his head once more. What a inconvenience.

Deciding that ultimately just leaving would be his best course of action, Gintoki gets up and loiters into his room, trying not to make it too obvious his intentions. He puts on his black pants and shirt, buckling his belt and, shit, of course his yukata would be outside. Thankfully, Kagura is in the kitchen with Shinpachi, probably already stuffing her face with what he's not even done cooking, so he slips on his boots and grabs his bouken steathfully. He's halfway out the door when he calls out he's leaving, and doesn't give Shinpachi a moment to complain because he's already started down the steps, yukata snatched off of the clothesline.

The sun is setting, and it's not like he's going to burst out in flames when his skin gets a little UV rays on it, it's just irritating as hell. This time is no different, and he swoops into Otose's bar before the kids can realize he's down there. He feels bad, he really does, but there's nothing he can do about it.

"Lookie here, back from the dead at last." Otose smirks, already pouring him a glass of… something. He grins back at her, acknowledging the joke. It's between them, a small little thing, but one Gintoki treasures nonetheless. His relationship with Otose is something irreplaceable, a price so high it can't be put into currency. He loves this woman, she's the mother he never had; and he intends on keeping her last years as happy as he can.

"Baba, always so mean..." He whispers, no one needed to catch onto anything they had no business being in. He takes a swig of the drink, still not sure about what it actually was. It didn't smell or taste like anything he'd ever had before, foreign origins probably, but it was stronger than half the things he'd had at this bar previously so he wasn't complaining.

"Where's the rent, you no good natural perm?"

"I thought what I was supposed to be doing tonight was going to be covering this month."

"Where's the past three months, then?" She glares, that too a joke, well… to a extent.

"You elderly are always focusing too much on the past, let's live in the present, ne?" He claps twice, the stupid look on his face wiped off when she swings the bottle at his head and he falls out of his chair dodging.

"Who's elderly? You got more gray hair than I do!" She spats, going back to mixing a customers next drink as Gintoki picks himself up off the floor.

"It's silver! _Sil~ver!_ There's a difference!"

"I see no difference!"

"Probably your eyes failing you, old bag!" This time she's actually successful hitting him.

"Hmmf." She looks outside, checking the sun's position. It's often that Gintoki sneaks in here to get away from something upstairs, and although he doesn't say anything about it, she knows it's hard to keep the act up. That's why he comes down so often, to be with someone who understands, if even a little bit. "Alright, Gintoki... Oi." His head darts up from the counter, and there's this lazy, dead look in his eyes. Fits him perfectly, she thinks, but decides against saying; instead sliding a paper to him with names written on it.

"What's this?" He looks down at it, the two people unfamiliar.

"Men who have been harassing some women around here recently. I think one of 'em has come into the bar once, but we get loud reckless ones in here all the time, you know how it goes. Anyways, I don't know for sure is what I'm saying. Your missing girls case, it might be them. I'd check up on it, see what you can find." She sips from her own drink, sake, and eyes the perm as he takes in the information.

"How do you want them dealt with?"

"Since when have you asked that?" She chuckles, the paper slid closer to him. "It's not my decision, is it?" He knows what she implies, and he'd shrug her off if he wasn't so fucking hungry. He looks out the window, the sun fully gone from the sky, and then back to the paper, which he folds and stuffs into his shirt. There's a silence between them even in the rowdiness of the bar and he keeps it that way, getting up and giving her a backward wave while throwing his yukata over his shoulder.

The sliding door shuts behind him, and it's too loud on the street to hear if the kids were settled in eating dinner or not. The night air was inviting, much unlike the sunlight, and almost as if it was awakened by the night air, the beast inside of him starts whining. It'd been a couple days, his tolerance seemingly decreasing over the years. He used to be able to last four days before he had to drink again, but that was after the war, maybe he was actually close to dying and he didn't know. Hell, he hardly knows now. That was beside the point, however, the point being that it was day two and god dammit he was _starving_.

The names Otose had given him, Kawahara Yushiro and Miyake Kazuo. He wasn't sure he was going to be able to find them tonight, and if he couldn't he was going to be in trouble. He hated having to go to innocents to supply his needs, he didn't ask for this, why should they be the ones to deal with it? Though you could say the same thing about cows, but then to justify that would be saying that humans were on a higher level in the food chain; and he really didn't want to think about himself as higher in the food chain than his friends and family, that was just wrong. And weird.

His feet carried him to the shady alleyways of Kabukicho, where all the criminals and Joui fractions gather to talk about their Evil Plans™. He was in search of a certain wig, however it seemed like the idiot moved his damn hide out again without telling him because when he knocked the most recent passcode into the door, no one answered and he couldn't feel anyone moving around inside.

Giving up, he turned away to leave, and it wasn't five steps away from the door when the eyes of someone else watching him started to burn into his back.

To say that Hijikata was having a bad day would be a colossal understatement. He was currently seething at the newest recruits, not that he _should _be able to even call them that anymore given that they'd been doing patrols and arresting people now for, what?― two months? They should be able to handle a single fucking vampire when the thing comes along, but even that was now a burning question for the two idiots.

Now, they had a vampire on the loose, one with an undoubtedly big mouth. They never fail to get one of those when they escape an attack by Shinsengumi officers, going around and telling all the kindred and criminals they know.

He hated it. Absolutely fucking hated it.

However the night was still young, he'd only been awake for four hours, there was still plenty of time to track down and kill the leech. He reached into his pocket, grabbing the half-full package of Mayoboro cigarettes, and fumbling to light one up with the restlessness of his fingers. He knew he had a smoking problem, one of his men had once called him a chimney and Hijikata would've hit him if he didn't think there was an ounce of credit in that. Anyways, he was at wit's end and the day, for him at least, had just begun. To make things worse, nicotine wasn't helping to take the edge off either, which in turn pissed him off more. He needed a drink, bad.

Kondo was just about to head into his room for the night when he caught Hijikata in the hallway, texting something furiously on his phone. "Oi! Toshi!"

Hijikata turns around after he finishes whatever he was typing, and flips his phone closed in a way that can only be described as violent before shoving it into his pocket. "What?"

"I know what happened earlier has you riled up―"

"No, you've got no fucking idea." The tone is harsh and he really doesn't mean it to be, it's just Kondo _doesn't_, and truthfully, it's better if it stays that way. Something flashes in Kondo's eyes and Hijikata has to wipe his face with his hands to calm down enough to not snap. "I'm sorry… I didn't-"

"I know, you're right. Anyways, what I was going to tell you is not to let it get to you so much. They can sense your anger from a mile away, Toshi. The group as a whole won't get anywhere if every vampire in Edo knows we're coming, you see what I'm saying?" Hijikata knows he's right, he knows, but he just can't help it sometimes. "And also, you can't do everything by yourself. I know your trust in the men is there, they are human, and all of us will make mistakes, you can't expect them to do a perfect job every time."

"But my job as a vice-commander i-"

"Is to discipline, I get it, but they're grown men."

"They act like children."

"Some, but weren't you the same way back in the day? Give them a chance, Toshi." Kondo's voice is calm and quiet, everything Hijikata is not right now. Once more, he knows that Kondo is right, and he makes his best attempt to calm his nerves.

"Thank you, Kondo-san. I'll try."

"No problem, Toshi. But you've been working yourself too hard recently, come out for a drink with me tomorrow if this mess is all sorted up by then, okay?"

For the first time in forever, Hijikata accepts, and Kondo leaves him with a stern squeeze on the shoulder. There's so much to do, he doesn't know how he's going to get it all done and track down and kill a vampire all in the same night. Almost as if it was on cue, his phone starts ringing, he flips it open and before he was able to get a word in, Yamazaki is already yammering on about a someone who he suspects to be the run away from earlier.

He grabbed his men and started heading down to the area where Yamazaki had seen the supposed vampire. Yes, tonight was going to be a long one.

If it were possible, Gintoki's eyes would be rolled into the back of his head. That's how pissed off he was. When he'd tried to walk away from the alleyway the eyes had just followed him, meaning they were either on the rooftops, or they were on the ground. Now normally he'd be able to pick up on a detail like that, but the person was either just out of range or he had a another vampire following him. What a bother. All he could think to do was to get lost in the crowd of people on the main streets to hopefully in turn, lose the thing following him. He's used to disappearing, this should be easy. Right? _Right?_

Since the only idiot he could fall back on didn't answer his door, he was at a loss of what to do for his… needs. If he could slip away from whatever this was, he could start focusing on fulfilling that wish, but right now he had bigger things to worry about. One of which was the road block currently blocking the rest of the main street, causing a pile up of people who were unhappy they couldn't get to the business they needed to. He cursed under his breath, it was painfully obvious who his pursuer was.

He turned, darting through a side alley, deciding that if it was him who they were targeting that it'd be better to simply play the game rather than get picked off in a crowd. The alley was small and dingy, one better used for trash and drunken flings than fighting, but he couldn't complain, not when he had multiple people closing in on him. He kept walking however, if he was to stop they would have a good amount of evidence, enough to ask some questions Gintoki wasn't sure he was going to be able to answer without a suspicious amount of sarcasm.

The ending of the alley had a small opening that led out to the street parallel to the one he was on before, which he was thankful for. The more witnesses the Shinsengumi had, the less likely they were to attack and even better, the more quiet their loud mouths would be.

God damn Katsura, this ordeal was probably the whole reason why he moved buildings in the first place. Gintoki was good about keeping the dogs off of his tail, at least better than Katsura. Now that he thinks about it, he probably should've called first, but then again he wants to blame the wig headed idiot a little bit more before he pins any blame on himself. Anyways, the point was that he was now dealing with Katsura's mess, which he would be sure to use to get _at least_ two nights of free drinks out of. That's _if _he wasn't arrested, or killed.

"Good afternoon sir, would you mind if we asked you a few questions?" A deep voice asks the moment he exits the alley. Damn Shinsengumi noses too sharp for their own good.

"Pertaining to? I'm a busy man, vice-commander-san." Gintoki can get away with being snappy with the vice-commander, the majority of the populous was. It was a well known fact in the Shinsengumi's territory that the vice-commander was a bit of a prick, so everyone treated him as such.

"The public's safety. And you can call me Hijikata, if that makes this ordeal any easier for you." There's a fire in the undertone of Hijikata's voice, one Gintoki can recognize only because he knows what it's like to kill in hatred. In Gintoki's defense, they don't really _know _for a fact that Gintoki is a vampire, he is of course, but they could be a _little _nicer. Well, he hopes they don't know at least. Two more men come up behind him, not too close, but close enough to intimidate anyone who wasn't expecting them. Then not a moment later two young men run up to his left, a confused look on their faces as one of them yell-whispers "_fukucho!"_

Hijikata gives them a half glance, not enough for them to incite conversation, and immediately directs his attention back to Gintoki. There's a glare before he speaks and Gintoki rebukes it with his signature dead look, seemingly pissing the vice-commander off more. "What's the wooden sword for?"

"I'm sure you know, vice-commander-san, living in Kabukicho isn't always a walk in the park."

Hijikata's watching him like a hawk, every move, every twinge of muscle. He knows that the officer is a master of reading people, but Gintoki is a book that's closed and locked on the side, and few have opened his pages. "Mmm, that's definitely true." There's a moment where Hijikata pauses, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it with a stupid mayonnaise bottle shaped lighter. If it were any other situation Gintoki would have laughed. "What are you doing out so late?"

"Depends. Work, for one."

"What do ya' do?"

"Anything. Run a freelance business. I'll find your cat, beat up your stalker, fuck you into the mattress. Whatever you want, really." There's an obvious red tint that falls over the vice-commander's face and the men around them nervously glance at each other, dead silent. Hijikata's eyebrows are raised and the cigarette is utterly crushed under his teeth. The same man from before tries, once more, to get Hijikata's attention and it, once more, fails.

"Did... you just openly admit to prostitution in front of an officer?"

"It's legal, last time I checked. I watch the news daily for Ketsuno Ana, I don't think I would miss a detail like that. Though people usually don't call for that type of stuf―" Hijikata is livid, and Gintoki's scarfing this up like candy. He's got a shit-eating grin on his face, and he's sure that the vice-commander hasn't met anyone who could stand up to him in a long time. This experience has turned out rather pleasant, if he does say so himself.

Hijikata grabs him by the shirt with one hand, his back now to the wall that was previously to his left. His yukata that he still hadn't had a chance to put on yet falling off of his shoulder and into a puddle on the ground. Gintoki watches it drop, the grin on his face falling with it. _Ah, now he'll have to wash it again._ "I don't give a single fuck. I'll make myself real clear here bastard, what were you doing in that alleyway?"

"Work."

"So it was work when you beat up two of my officers earlier? Did you think you could escape and live to see the next day?" Hijikata tightens the grip on Gintoki's shirt, any fake kindness in his voice had been replaced by pure enmity. Not that Gintoki cares, but the lit cigarette is getting a little too close for comfort. He has no idea what the other is going on about, but if he gets burned and that thing heals before their eyes, then he's going to be in trouble. Another officer tries to get Hijikata attention, and again, it fails. The one-track mind of this one was strong. A wonder how he got to be vice-commander.

"I have zero clue what you're talking about." Gintoki says blandly, because truthfully, he doesn't. Hijikata glares again and this time when the officer actually tugs on his shirt he listens.

"Fukucho! He's not the one from earlier! The one that beat us up had long, black hair… and a weird duck cosplayer as a friend." Gintoki mentally and emotionally facepalms, and the grip on his shirt loosens slightly.

"'E's not? Whaddya mean he's not?" Gintoki has to dodge the cigarette to keep it from burning his nose when Hijikata turns his head to face his subordinates, which makes him smack his head against the brick wall behind him. He looks up to the moon, questioning all the choices he made that lead up to this moment. Why couldn't he have just been like, a werewolf or something? Or a mermaid? Wait, no, he can't swim, nevermind that idea. A werewolf was fine, he could live with that, yeah.

"I only saw him knock on the door the other one came out of, fukucho… T-that's why I called you." One of the ones that had come up behind him says, and Gintoki is slowly starting to piece this shit show of a situation together. This was definitely worth three nights of drinks, he decides.

"So you mean to say, he's not the one we're looking for? Why didn't you tell me earlier?! I nearly gave away top secret information to a god damn civilian!"

"No, fukucho... I've _been _trying to tell you that-" The younger subordinate says, and Gintoki can't help but laugh. "W-we still don't know why he was knocking at the door, though…"

Hijikata seems satisfied with that and once more, all the attention is on him. "Listen, the guy on the phone wanted me to buy their alcohol for them earlier, but I was busy when they called and couldn't do it till a little while ago. So, I was going to drop by their place and get money before going to the store." There's a twitch in Hijikata's eyebrow, and Gintoki knows it's because the vice-commander has realized his time is being wasted.

"What's your name?"

"Gintoki." Hijikata glares again and Gintoki knows he's not going to be let go without both his first and his last name. "Sakata Gintoki." Thankfully, with that, his shirt is turned loose and Gintoki rubs out the wrinkles, picking up his wet and muddied yukata off of the ground.

"Sorry for the inconvenience, Sakata-san." Ohoho... now this was a real treat.

"Mhm, spare a light then?" There's a smirk on his face and he knows he's pushing all the right buttons. He must admit though, the vice-commander was just too fun to not mess with. There's a loud, irritated sigh as the other reaches into his pocket to pull out his cigarettes, and Gintoki has no remorse in taking the last one. A chain smoker like Hijikata is sure to have a pack or two somewhere, not to mention his fixed income. Once again, that stupid little mayo lighter is taken out and Hijikata lights Gintoki's cigarette, which honestly, is the nicest thing he's ever seen the man do. Yeah, there's the whole "_saving lives"_ deal but, when the man has a personality that makes you want to have a sword impale you anyways, what's the point?

"Fukucho, Kondo-san wants you to go meet him by the cabaret club…? He says you'd know which one it is..." One of the younger guys say, and Hijikata ruffles his hair with his hand. Of course, that stupid little v-shape still splitting his forehead perfectly.

"I thought that bastard was going to sleep?" The vice-commander says as a question, but it's more of a statement by the end of the sentence. Gintoki doesn't know why he's still here, there was no reason to be; however he had taken to playing a game of blowing smoke from his cigarette closer and closer to Hijikata's face, seeing if he could hit the bastard, _just once-! _

The officer gives a decisive wave of his hand, signalling to his men it was time to leave. Ah, what a shame. A big "_try again next time!" _sign flashes in his head and he mentally spits at it. What a joke. One of the older men with longer black hair looks at him, then Hijikata, then him again, bowing a apology before jogging back to the head dog. He hears something as the men walk away about the commander being stuck in a trash can filled with hardening cement? He can't say he's surprised.

Now then, onto his original business. The lead Otose had given him would have to wait until he could talk to that dumb wig about it, preferably with a substantial amount of alcohol to follow it. He needed something to drink, desperately. Maybe a hook up? He could get that rather easy if he went to the right bar. He'd rather that than some man off the street, passed out in an alley that smells of Sadaharu's shit and vomit.

Sighing, he pushes himself off the wall with his foot and starts along to the place, his kimono dripping puddle water onto the back of his pants leg as he walked.

Hijikata's about had it for tonight. Not only had that Gintoki guy been a prick, but he'd also been a dead end to a problem, and currently he was trying to chisel Kondo out of a trash can.

"But you should've seen her, Toshi! When I tried to go to sleep my thoughts were just invaded of that beautiful face~" Kondo's practically got heart eyes and he really can't understand why. The cabaret girl he was so infatuated with was nothing short of a walking nightmare. Not that he'd admit it to anyone, but even he was a little scared of her. _The spear was just… too big._

"And then she told me to go fuck myself!"

"Really? Quite the love story."

There's one final crack and Kondo breaks free, fully naked from the waist down. There's a woman somewhere behind him that gasps and he can hear her run away, he doesn't blame her. He reaches into his pocket for a cigarette while the other men scurry to cover up their leader from the outside world. Oh, right. That permy haired bastard took the last one.

Immediately five times more pissed off than seconds prior, he throws a towel one of the men had run and bought at Kondo's genitals, barking out orders for them to escort their commander back to the barracks. Turning on his heel, he marches till he finds the nearest vending machine, which was, of course, out of Mayoboro cigarettes. He picks some equally cheap kind and nearly punches the button in after he puts in his hundred yen. What a fucking joke.

When he'd finally made it to the area he was supposed to patrol almost a hour and a half ago, it's well past twelve and he can't even bother to text Yamazaki and ask how Kondo was doing. He was sure everything was fine, he _hoped _everything was fine, but he's really got more important things to be doing with his time at the moment. Much like yelling at drunk couples to stop hooking up in the dark corners of alleys. Although he'd originally wanted to strictly track down and execute vampires, he can't say he doesn't mind the... glamours of police work from time to time.

Speaking of vampires, aside from the incident earlier, there hadn't been much activity in the Shinsengumi's half of Edo lately. Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing he didn't know, the bloodsuckers never did make their job easy enough to find out. Just when they'd start to think they'd scared the leeches off, another four people would wind up drained dry and dumped in the same dumpster. No, it never was easy.

There was a certain cycle to these things, a pattern, if you will. Whenever it got quiet, that was the waiting game. Maybe plans were being made in the shadows, maybe ten more people would get turned, maybe there would be a meeting of their elders in the forests outside of the city, or in the sewers beneath it. The waiting period was the quietest, calmest, the men would get a little hope and then comes the outbreak.

Something would occur that Hijikata has to rush to cover up before hysteria breaks out, aka, the worst stage. Which, many would speculate that with the Amanto, such a thing would not be a problem; however the Amanto species that roamed the streets of Edo did not have to survive off of the blood of humans. Therefore the amanto were only scary in presence, not existence. The final stage always was the clean up. Clean up in whatever way, shape, or form. Every year he tells himself he'd seen it all and every year he'd be proven wrong. God, he really needed that drink.

It's three in the morning before Hijikata gets back to the barracks, another quiet night gone by. Taking his cigarettes and lighter out before throwing his jacket into the dirty clothes hamper, Hijikata sits down in front of his desk, lighting up yet another cigarette and getting started on reports that would last him well into the daylight hours.

It was almost too easy sometimes, to capture men and women into this web of seduction, wrap them up with a nice little crimson bow on their neck. He hated everything about this life, from the stupid shit like constantly keeping the blinds shut tight, the throwing up of food after he ate it, the having to remember to breathe. Those things were annoying, but not damn near annoying as the beast.

This thing inside of him, the urge need to take, constantly take, take, _take_.

The urge to kill, to feel the veins of his prey run dry because they had nothing left to give him.

It was a predatory instinct, one built on someone else's suffering for his own couple days of satisfaction. It was ingrained into him from the moment he was turned and it hadn't left in fifteen years, not like it would ever. It was who he was, forever drawn to the warm flesh of those living, the heartbeat of a human. No, it would never change.

It was a woman this time, and he'd fattened her up with lies before leading her out of the bar, genuinely laughing most of the way to the hotel at stories of her son, who he'd learned she'd raised alone. He feels bad, and everytime it's like he's going to throw up what he doesn't have in his stomach to begin with. But he'd learned to simply bear with it, he couldn't have one of his kids being the victim instead. So he slips his hand under the back of her kimono's belt, grabbing her gently by the hip, whispering more sinful promises into the nape of her neck as his hands work their way up her figure, guiding her further into the darker part of the tiny alley.

She's a beautiful woman, and the way her skin dances under his fingers is nothing short of erotic. She's ready to be taken, but not how the promises he fed her told her she would be; she'll wake up hours later, confused and scared. He knows this, so he stalls a while longer; the more lost she was, the better. She's shorter, so he picks her up, her legs wrapping loosely around his waist, arms around his neck, trusting. There's a second in between the bliss that he asks if she's ever screamed before, and she replies with a shake of her head, followed by something about how she'd never been with the right man. Gintoki's too gone to hear it properly though, because the way the beast is clawing at him is too distracting, too demanding, he's so _hungry_… so he covers her mouth, and bites.


	2. Chapter Two

Hijikata wakes up choking, the burning scent of smoke and ash thickening the air, suffocating him more with every breath he struggled to take. His whole body ached, the pressure on his chest much like someone was pushing down on him, like he was going to mold into the ground beneath him. He rolls over heaving, coughing, crying; the walls of fire around him closing in quickly, spreading across the tatami mat like it was mere paper. He and his futon are next, but the pressure forcing down on him is too crushing, too paralyzing.

His vision is blurring in and out and the smoke caught under his eyelids scrapes his eyes like sandpaper with each blink. Every fiber of his being is both aflame and sluggish, he feels like he's floating on clouds his head is so dizzy. One by one, he picks his limbs up and hauls his weight onto his feet. A wall crumbles to the ground beside him, the one leading into what looks like the living room, and he can vaguely make out four figures standing in the center of the room. Hijikata fumbles his way around the pieces of burning fusuma, and catches up to the shadows.

Three people stand surrounding one on the ground, looming over the person holding his hands up in surrenderance. This is all so familiar, but he's not quite sure where he is yet― the moments he was experiencing dancing on the tip of his tongue like some bad déjà vu. He staggers his way over to the pleading man and his assailants while pieces of the ceiling's wood fall off and sear his skin.

"Oi_-!_ You three! W-what are you doing to that man?" No one spares him even a lift of their head, either the people don't see him or they're paying no mind; Hijikata puts his hand on the shoulder of the closest man, and it passes right through the black mass. They're laughing, mocking him or the person on the floor, he can't tell anymore, everything is too cloudy, his head is spinning, he can feel himself being consumed by the heat's wraith more by each passing second. He stumbles back several steps, falling onto his ass, while the men all still laugh. He can't hear their voices though, only the popping and crackling sounds of the building being demolished by the flames. Hijikata attempts to rub the soot from his vision, which only makes them burn more, and by the time he opens his eyes again the man in the middle has a knife raised in the air, ready to strike.

The one motion hits Hijikata like a truck, and he's now vividly all too aware of where he is. He flings his body weight forward, scrambling on all fours to reach the man on the floor, to pull him away to safety; but the ground seemed to move him back like a conveyor belt with every panicked crawl. He's too far, all he can do is watch in agony as Tamegoro screams, the blade cutting across his face.

The flames erupt around the scene and all Hijikata can see is red. He stumbles to his feet, sprinting over to the men and slicing them across their own faces with a knife he doesn't recall picking up. The men drop to the ground like flies, tossing and turning at his feet, wailing like children throwing a tantrum. Blood drips onto the tatami mat from the tip of his blade while his chest heaves and begs for air. Footsteps scramble in behind him, he turns his head, looking over his shoulder, eyes bloodshot and hungry like a deranged animal. The people who he now recognized to be his siblings visibly flinched, whispering shaky, fearful accusations among themselves, the flames dancing around them like he was in the devil's ballroom.

"_Hijikata! What have you done?!" _One shouts.

"_Monster!" _Yells another.

"_Hijikata!" _

"_Get lost, demon!" _

"_Hijikata! Hijikata! _Hijikata!"

He eyes fly open, and his body darts forward, blanket pooling at his waist. He's sweating like a pig, his heart is racing and he's gasping for air. _It was just a dream. Only a dream._

"Fukucho? Are you all right? Do you need me to go and get you some water?" He turns his head, and Yamazaki is kneeled down beside his futon, a concerned expression plastered all over his face. Hijikata runs a hand through his hair, steadying his breathing before his voice acknowledges the fact that he was vulnerable before one of his subordinates. Though he'd not admit it to anyone but himself, he's relieved it's Yamazaki. Maybe it was because the man was five years older than him, or maybe it was because of their unique relationship in the Shinsengumi; either way he didn't know and he didn't want to think that much into it, he was just glad it wasn't a new recruit or Sougo. That would've been… well, demeaning to say the least.

"No," Hijikata nearly chokes up. "I'm alright, but thank you. I'm more interested in why you've woken me up before my alarm."

Yamazaki scratches the back of his head, averting his eyes from Hijikata's. "Well sir, you weren't answering your phone, and the commander and Sougo-san are already heading towards the scene so I thought I would-"

"Get on with it! What scene?!"

"There's been another murder, sir."

It isn't but thirty minutes later Hijikata steps out of the car and through the police tape.

Subordinates are scrambling around, going in and out of the alley while some curious civilians are watching the commotion play out, trying to figure out what was going on, whispering amongst themselves. Hijikata lights up a cigarette, finally smoking his correct brand, and proceeds towards where the body was found. When he turns the corner, Sougo, Kondo, and Harada are all talking in a circle while some other members work on photographing and sketching the scene.

He walks up to the circle, but not before getting a good look at what had happened. There's lacerations all around the body, several stabs in the stomach and chest, one slice on the thigh, and a cut down the side of the victims neck― odd. The thigh wound was most likely a cut to inhibit movement, that was not out of the ordinary. The stabs were the finishing blow. The neck wound, it's vertical slice was not one of an attempt to inhibit movement or kill the victim, because then it would be a horizontal slit of the throat. This however, placed directly under the ear of the man, seemed most likely to be an attempt to conceal the fact that this was a murder by a vampire's doing.

Hijikata stands up, turning towards the group. "Glad you're finally here, Hijikata-kun. What? Were you trying to skip out on work to get a little extra z's in? How despicable…" Sougo says, signature sadistic grin spreading across his no-good face.

Hijikata rolls his eyes. "Like I don't have to run after you every day to find where you've gone off to nap, bastard."

"Knock it off you two. We need to figure out what we're dealing with here." Kondo says, crossing his arms.

"It's pretty clear, I believe."

"What do you mean by that, Toshi?" Kondo asks and Hijikata proceeds to give his deliberations on the victims wounds. "Ah, that would make sense. The wounds do not appear to go entirely through the body, so we know this was not done by a sword, but a knife of some sort. Besides, if it was a sword there's at least ten stabbings in the torso alone, someone wielding a katana would not need to ensure their victim was killed by stabbing them that many times."

"This was probably the work of someone moving quickly, taking extra precaution in not getting seen. They wanted to kill their target and quickly; and if it was in fact a vampire it would make all the more sense that they would cover up their bite marks by putting a shallow cut down the side of the neck." Harada inputs, and Hijikata nods in agreeance.

"You're right, the wound isn't deep enough to be put off as an attempt to stab the victim's neck."

Sougo yawns, "How many of these murders have happened recently?"

"Three in this area over the past month, but the Mimawarigumi reported that they've had two killings in one of their districts as well. There might be ties between the two so, Harada, we need to make sure we have someone looking into that as soon as possible. Also, has anyone started on figuring out who he is yet? Any missing person reports?"

"Yes, sir! I'll go put someone on it right away, sir. And I'm not sure, but I will go and fix it if it's not being done." Harada salutes, and jogs out of the alley.

"Make sure we have someone chalking this and marking evidence with numbers the very second sketch is over with, you hear? I want to get the evidence out of here and in the lab so we can have this place cleaned up by tonight." The man taking pictures nods, and then Hijikata head outs of the alley as well. What a headache. Murders were never fun for anyone, and this time it was his turn to go and meet with the family to tell them about their loss. He dreaded that, more than reports and more than figuring out the case, it was disgracing to have to tell someone that the Shinsengumi had failed in protecting their loved one. And besides, he knew all too well what it was like having someone they loved slaughtered by a vampire; though, he could never tell them that detail.

Hijikata puts out his cigarette, going over to the patrol car and pulling out a blank sheet of on-scene report papers and a clipboard. Slumping down into the front seat, the sun slowly rising annoyingly in the corner of his eye, he prepares himself for what he knows is going to be a long, tiring day.

It's not like Gintoki needed sleep. In reality, he could have a normal schedule, waking up when the sun does and going to bed or leaving the house when it goes down. He _could _have that, but to be awake during the day would mean that the kids could force him out on jobs, and that was never pleasant, unless it was overcast or raining. But if it was raining, then the kids were the ones that didn't want to go out. It was a hard life, really. That's why it was a surprise when he found himself getting up at… he rolls over, checking the time― eight in the morning.

The last time he'd ate was the night before last, he wasn't hungry, nor were the kids making noise, he was just… awake. Planting his face down into the pillow, he listened to the birds begin to fly around outside, Shinpachi brew tea in the kitchen, and Kagura gently snore. The feeling that today wasn't going to go how he would like it to (aka with him spending his entire day in front of the TV with Kagura) buzzed annoyingly in the back of his mind like a mosquito. Shinpachi would make them go out today, he knew because they were running tremendously low on the money they'd made from their past few jobs. Sighing, he lifted himself up off his futon and shuffled his way out of his room and onto the couch. At least he could see his angel do the morning news, that was something that he rarely indulged in.

He turns on the TV, and it clicks and buzzes to life, already on his desired channel. Ketsuno Ana wasn't on yet, instead it was the news anchors talking about some recent murders in the area. Somewhere in the back of his head he wonders if it has any connection to do with the two men Otose gave him, but he dismisses it for later.

Shinpachi walks into the living room with two cups of green tea, "Kagura-chan, I made some tea fo- G-G-GIN-CHAN?! Since when?! Why?! Are you alright? Did you hit your head on something? Why are you awake so early? It's just after eight―" There's a bit of tea spilled on the floor in the wake of Shinpachi's confusion and surprise, and Gintoki just stares at it for a second before turning his attention back to the TV.

"Just am." He says, nonchalantly sticking a finger in his ear and picking out ear wax, flinging it towards Shinpachi with a flick of his pinky.

"T-this is… I'm…" Shinpachi stoically walks around to the other couch, sitting down with his back straight, his glasses gleaming where his eyes couldn't be seen, he fixes them, then bows. "Nice to meet you, sir. I'm Shimura Shinpachi-"

"_Oi-!_ I'm still the same person, dumbass!" Gintoki yells, hitting his fist on the table.

Kagura's closet door flies open and she's yelling too. "What's all this ruckus about?!" She points a finger in the direction of the two. "A girl needs her beauty sleep, ya know?!"

Shinpachi turns, halfway facing her, a imperturbered look still on his face. He fixes his glasses once more. "Gin-san is awake before five in the afternoon."

Kagura gasps, suddenly all too intrigued by the conversation that her lack of sleep stopped mattering. "What time is it?!"

"Eight… thirteen…. A.M."

She gasps again, louder. He really shouldn't have gotten out of bed. Not that any of that matters to him now, because Ketsuno Ana is coming on next. If that whole vampire myth thing about soulmates was real then Ketsuno Ana had to be his, it was certain. They really would make a beautiful couple.

Shinpachi and Kagura start to yell about something, and he doesn't really care, he's not paying attention. Well, he doesn't care until the commercials for toothpaste go off and he's greeted by his angel, then he cares a little too much.

"_Shut up!"_

"You shut up!" Kagura yells back, jumping over the back of the couch that Shinpachi's sitting on, her bed hair going in all directions possible.

"Ketsuno Ana is on! _You _shut up!" He spats, throwing a pillow at her.

She jumps across the table and onto Gintoki's back, pushing down on his head as she yanks his right arm back, smushing his face into the couch. "I will rip you a new ketsu no ana if you keep talking to a lady like that, you madao!"

Gintoki shrieks into the cushion, rolling over from his stomach onto his back, flinging Kagura off him and onto the floor in between the table and the couch. "Fine, demon girl! I swear... and you kids wonder why I sleep all day!"

"Good!" She spats, then flops over on the other couch, flicking boogers at him when she thinks he's not paying attention. He flicks some back. It ends badly. Kagura gets the first shower.

By the time Ketsuno Ana's segment is almost over, and right before he's about to find out what the Libra horoscope is for today, Kagura makes a huge show of dropping all of the containers they keep in the shower onto the floor, all at once. It makes such a ruckus the only thing he can hear is Otose yelling at them from below to shut up. He groans.

The day progresses, he's eventually is forced out onto a job but he spends most of his time in the shade painting a house, so it wasn't all too bad. Kagura and Shinpachi were the ones who went off doing other jobs that required more sunlight, all in all, he was considerably lucky that they didn't want to spend their time painting.

By the time he's done, the house's outer walls are a nice shade of tan accented by the sliding door's dark wood and honestly, he's pretty proud of it. The house looks a lot fresher and the generous older couple living there pay him a bit extra for doing such a good job in the amount of time that he did. The bright side about that being Shinpachi couldn't bitch at him for a while.

He assumes the kids are still out because when he gets back home, the door is locked and it's quiet inside. The only movement he could hear was Otose preparing glasses for tonight's business. He lets himself into the apartment, kicking off his boots and unzipping his blue long sleeve coverall as he walked through the living room. Gintoki puts it into the washer alone, so the kid's clothes won't get paint on them, and starts the cycle.

He walks into the living room, scooping up the remote and flopping onto the couch like a fish. However, before he's able to turn on the TV to end his day with glorious soap operas, the phone rings. Being as lazy as he is, he contemplates letting it ring, but eventually decides that's probably a bad idea. He rolls over and onto his feet, sauntering over to it and picking it up.

"Yorozuya Gin-chan, how may we be of service-"

"Gintoki! Come drinking with me tonight!"

"You…" He sighs, rubbing his temples with his free hand. "Do you have any idea of how much trouble you put me through the other day?! I'll go drinking with you but I'm _not _paying."

Zura laughs, of course the bastard does. "I won't be paying either, there's a surprise waiting for you tonight so meet me on the same street that we drank on last week. It shouldn't be hard finding me."

"What―" The other chuckles again, cutting him off.

"We never got to talk either, so tonight is a good night to do it." Katsura says, voice a little suspiciously smooth. "I'll see you there."

"Zur-" But it's too late, because the phone is already hung up on the other side. Talking to Zura was always a pain, but it was multiplied several times whenever they were on a call. He sighs, hanging up the phone and then going to put on his yukata for tonight. One of the bright sides about being immortal is that you didn't sweat, you had no need to, so unless you got thrown into a dumpster or had a ton of Kagura boogers on you, then you never really had to take a shower after work. Speaking of the kids, as if on cue he can hear Shinpachi, Kagura, and Sadaharu coming up the stairs and the rustle of bags with them. His best guess is that Shinpachi used some of the money they earned to buy food for tonight's dinner, they really didn't have anything at all, the cupboards were bone dry and so was the fridge. Not that that was unusual, of course.

The door slides open and Shinpachi greets Gintoki, going immediately into the kitchen to prepare dinner for them. Gintoki tells him that he's going out, and to bring his meal to his sister. Kagura hops on the idea, always adamant about spending the night at the "_boss lady's"_ house. He tells her not to forget her toothbrush and then says goodbye, heading out into the evening's light.

It was dark by the time he made it to the street, and Katsura was never wrong, the other knew that Gintoki would be able to sense him from a mile away. Gintoki starts down the street, and it's only five minutes later he's swooping into a shady bar where he's greeted by two familiar faces.

Katsura and Sakamoto were sitting in a private room, drinking and chatting about Sakamoto's most recent business deals when Gintoki opens the door. _Of course, this is what Katsura meant by not paying for the drinks._

He sits down, Sakamoto downing the rest of his sake before saying anything to Gintoki. "_Wahh~!_ Good to see you, Kintoki! Ahahaha! It's sure has been a while! Six months, maybe?"

"Maybe, I wouldn't know. You tend to lose track of time easily when you're not counting your days anymore." Gintoki chuckles, the energy Sakamoto carried was never short of enjoyable. Maybe sometimes annoying, but nonetheless enjoyable. He missed his old friend, and he's glad that Sakamoto was able to make time to come and see them.

"Ahahaha! I wish! You two are always so insufferable when it comes to that, though. How hard is it to just nibble a bit on me? Not that hard! And I taste good~" Sakamoto laughs again and there's a silence that falls between the other two men.

"First of all, it's not done by simply "_nibbling"_ on you, if that were true then everyone that we bit would turn. It's a painful and gruesome process, you don't want what you think you want, Tatsuma. We've told you multiple times." Katsura says while Gintoki quietly sips on his drink.

Despite the obvious drop in energy, Sakamoto laughs once more. "_Zuuurrraaa!_ I've asked you how many times now? I wouldn't be so stubborn if I wasn't absolutely sure that I knew what I was getting into. The whole sunlight deal, mirrors, blood, I know! So help a friend and his business out, _ne?_" Sakamoto winks, twirling the sake in his glass around.

"Haven't you asked Mutsu?" Gintoki says, taking a swing of his drink.

"I have!" He whines, head dropping. "She's just as hard-headed as you two!"

"That should tell you something then." Katsura states blatantly and Gintoki completely agrees with him. He understands _why _Sakamoto wants to be turned, but Sakamoto doesn't know what the past fifteen years have been like, he wasn't there to see his friends from the war be changed, thankfully. Sure, it would probably be easier for him not having to worry about people like the Shinsengumi and Mimawarigumi all the time, but he's not about to let Sakamoto think that he has even a little bit of a convincing argument. Maybe one day Gintoki will change his mind, him, Katsura, or Mutsu― but until that day comes Sakamoto will age mortally by each passing second.

"You guys are no fun." He whines, taking another swig of his alcohol. "Anyways, let's talk business while we're all still sober enough to."

Gintoki nods in agreement, turning his attention over to Katsura. "Before that, you know what you got me into when you ditched your hideout without telling me, bastard?! I nearly got caught by that fucking Hijikata guy, of all people." Okay, maybe _almost caught_ was a bit of a stretch, but he wasn't about to take back his words now that they were said.

Katsura chuckled. "But you didn't. That's why you should joi-"

"Not what I'm getting at!"

"You should-"

"I _should _get three nights worth of free alcohol."

"Well, here's one."

"You're not paying."

Zura sighs, "Fine, but only because I didn't tell you."

"And the fact that it was your fault in the beginning, aside from the you not telling me part." Zura just shrugs in reply, and Gintoki's just surprised that he actually got what he wanted. Three free nights of drinking was quite the bit of alcohol. "Anyways, I wanted to ask you two about some men that have been harassing girls around Kabukicho recently. I think they might have something to do with the mass disappearance of women I'm trying to find. You have no idea how many families have come to me about their daughters, wifes, sisters... you name it."

"What are the names of the men?" Katsura asks, brushing his hair behind his ear.

Gintoki pulls out the slip of paper from the inside of his yukata and tosses it on the table in front of Katsura. "Kawahara Yushiro and Miyake Kazuo. Otose gave me the lead."

Katsura seems to give the names a moment of thought before he speaks. "I know Yushiro. He worked under me for a while before leaving rather suddenly. Of course, to make sure he wasn't a spy for the bakufu we had him put under surveillance, but this past week…" Katsura shakes his head slightly, pausing. "He's gone off the grid. He typically stays around this big warehouse, I don't know what it's used for. The place has no specific signs and it's not a business, at least not a normal one; but it's well traveled through by the same people. My men couldn't get inside, it might be another underground criminal organization but... I'm not quite sure."

Gintoki thinks over the information that Zura had just given him, glad he'd gotten some sort of a lead to go off of. "What about his history with women?"

"Mmm, he's a party drinker that's for sure, but I can't give you a definitive answer because I don't have any women working under me, so I never saw him interact with them." Katsura takes a drink of his sake, "Though like I said, he did get rambunkshus when he drank a lot. But maybe that was because he was a lightweight. All in all, from my experience, he wasn't a bad guy."

Gintoki turns to Sakamoto. "Anything from you?"

"No, though my informates down here have kept me well aware of the recent kidnappings and murders. I think they're connected, but…" He shrugs, "just a hunch."

"What have they told you?"

"Well, one of my men witnessed one of the murders. Said he was walking down the street at night, this drunk was in front of him on other side of the street, good bit away, and all of a sudden, the man is pulled into an alley as he passes by it. There was a scream, my informate ran to go check what had happened and the guy had gained thirteen stab wounds. He watched the man take his last breath." Sakamoto pauses, thinking about his next words. "It was Kishimoto Miyazaki, the second victim in this area. Worked in a dry cleaning business. We really have no idea how these murders are all connected, but we're working on it."

"Do you think you could take me to this warehouse, Zura?"

"It's not Zura, it's Katsura. And yes, I'm quite curious as to what Yushiro-san has gotten up to as well."

Gintoki opened his mouth to say something when suddenly, a shiver runs through his entire body, and with just one quick glance, he can tell Zura felt it too. The two vampires froze, the energy that had entered the bar walked down further, and into the actual lounging area where it placed itself in the back corner and stayed there. Meanwhile, Gintoki tried to focus in on a voice but there was too many drunken yells and talking. He glances over to Sakamoto, who was already pulling out cash from his wallet. Gintoki and Katsura slip on their shoes and Sakamoto is not farther than a step behind them. He knows his two immortal friends can sense things that are way out of his own grasp, and it's easy to tell when something is amiss. As quickly as they got up they were out the door, but not in a way that made it seem too suspicious. Gintoki leads to two back to his apartment, knowing it would be empty when he got there. Although he doesn't feel entirely comfortable going straight back home after having felt something like that, he doesn't sense it following them and neither does Katsura, or else he would have said something.

By the time he and his friends are back at his apartment, he first swings by Otose's bar to buy them a bottle of sake. Which, much to Otose's surprise, he pays for with his own money. The three head up the steps, and the first words said between them since the bar come from Sakamoto.

"What happened to you two?"

"It was another kindred, one many years older than us. It's a sense we have, not necessarily how to tell if a vampire is older, but if it's more powerful, in a way. However there's few times that age and power don't go hand in hand." Katsura says, the three of them kicking off their shoes.

"Whoever it is, they're not from around here. I'm sure that won't be the last time we see it, either." Gintoki grumbles, going to the kitchen and grabbing the sake cups. "I'm too fucking sober for this."

"Agreed." Said Sakamoto, already claiming one of the couches for himself.

Gintoki takes off his yukata and throws it over his desk, quickly the first one to grab the bottle to open it. He's already buzzed, but be it a vampire thing or not, but ever since the bar his mood has dropped tremendously and he can tell Katsura is a little ticked too; so he pours their cups, well on his way to getting absolutely goddamn plastered.

A couple hours later when the bottle finally ran dry and their moods had all turned into a drunken slur, Sakamoto interrupts the quiet of the room. "_Soooo_, do ya guys like, not know what ya look like now, or somethin'? Since yer mirrors don't work no-" _Hiccup_. "-more..."

Gintoki's draped over the couch, his head on Katsura's lap, which, he doesn't really remember getting into this position, it had just kind of… happened. Not that he's bothered by it at all, he and Katsura had always been close, and there's been more than a few times that they'd had too much alcohol or lost sight of themselves a little too far and ended up having sex. They didn't like each other romantically, it was more of an attempt for them to stop thinking about everything so much and just forget, if only for a little while. It was unspoken of outside of the two, but he was sure Sakamoto probably had some sort of an idea about it. Sakamoto was like Katsura, too intuitive for his own good.

"N-ope." Slurs Gintoki, and he's just staring up at the ceiling. "Gotta always make sure I don't-ta go in tha bathroom while one of my kids are brushin' their teeth…"

"We only remember what we look like in tha war, we 'ot zero clue what we look like now." Katsura chimes in, and Gintoki's surprised he's still awake with how his head was hanging back before. It's not like he had a pulse or breathing levels to listen to check if he was still awake or not, especially because the bastard could sleep with his eyes open.

"Well, er… Kintoki… yer hair's tha same color, same perminess, it's just er, shorter 'n less fluffy than tha war. Yer jawlines gotten more… chiseled. Sharper. Looks like it could cut someone..." Sakamoto says and Katsura nods, staring down at him.

"Yeah… 'e's right. It used ta be more like…" Katsura's hands go down and trace the line where his jaw supposedly was when he was in the war. He forgot how soft those fucking hands were, he'd bet on them being softer than most women's. He didn't know how he did it, constantly handling a sword, but Katsura was a man of many mysteries. "That. 'T's more up now."

Sakamoto chuckled, "'N you Zura… You're a lil' rounder in the face, jus' a teeny tiny bit. Your eyes are a lil' darker, too… Ahah, aside from keepin' ya hair down all tha time now, ya really changed tha least."

"Ya demeanor still tha same. You still cross ya arms every time yer tryin' to make a point ta someone…" Says Gintoki, he's known his friend long enough to definitively say that he hasn't changed a bit since childhood. "'Is a little funny, actually..."

"Ya know what…" Gintoki hops up from the couch a little too fast, and nearly vomits all over his floor, but he holds it in like the big boy he is; staggering over to his desk and pulling out a blank sheet of paper from the stash that Kagura used to draw and color on every now and then. He pulls a pencil from the cup on his desk and flops back over onto the couch, moving the glasses and wiping where Sakamoto had spilled sake off with his forearm. "Imma draw ya."

Katsura and Sakamoto both start to laugh. "What, bastards? Imma great-" _Hiccup_. "-artist!"

Katsura motions for him to go ahead, still chuckling, and Gintoki turns towards the table. He draws Katsura's hair first, because that's his defining feature, then does his jaw, followed by his nose, eyes, eyebrows, and finally, the finishing touch… an Elizabeth sign poking out from behind Katsura's head that read: "_it's not Zura." _

He knows it's not his best work, because if he focuses on the pencil too much then he starts seeing three of them. He's proud of it nonetheless, considering how fucking drunk he actually is. He holds it up proudly for his two friends to see and they immediately burst out in laughter, once more.

"Whatcha laughin' about?! It's what 'e looks like!" Gintoki slurs, defending his masterpiece.

"His hair ain't even connected to 'is head, Kintoki!" Gintoki flips the paper to look at his drawing, _oh, _it's not. Sakamoto laughs again, reaching for the pencil on the table. "Gimme tha paper." Sakamoto begins to draw his version of current Katsura and when he's done Gintoki's sure his is the better drawing, though it might just be the alcohol talking. "This…" Sakamoto holds up the finished piece. "s'what Zura looks like now, ahaha!"

Now it's Gintoki's turn to laugh. "Mine's definitely more correct than that, asshole! Hair 'n all!"

"I hope I don't look like what either of ya have drawn! Here," Katsura says, taking the paper from Sakamoto's hands and starting on drawing Gintoki. "You two are just bad artists." He states, not looking away from his work.

"Well, we're both piss drunk."

"So am I! Doesn't mean ya gotta make my hair float, Gintoki!" He takes a couple more minutes on his drawing before holding it up beside Gintoki's face for Sakamoto and himself to compare. "Now, tell me that don't look jus' like 'em."

"There's a resemblance…" Sakamoto has his fingers on his chin like he's looking at some expensive artwork in a museum. "But I could do better."

"Oi, don't do me as dirty as you did Zura, Tatsuma…" Sakamoto doesn't say anything, instead putting all of his drunken focus onto drawing Gintoki's permy hair. By the time he's done, it's pretty clear that Katsura is the winner of the night. Gintoki doesn't say anything about his lopsided eyes, they speak for themselves. Instead he flops onto his back, forearms behind his head as he takes to staring out towards the starry night sky.

Silence falls onto the three friends once more, and moments pass between them where more things are felt than they are said. It brought him back to the old times, when they would climb onto rooftops and talk about what they thought the future was going to be like, Sakamoto going on and on about his dreams for travelling through space. With the crickets as loud as they were, it could almost pass as one of those cherished moments from the past; when the would was a little bit less cruel.

"Do…" Gintoki begins, not quite sure why his mind lead him to this question, or why he even opened his mouth to say it. "Do you guys think that we'll be able coexist one day?"

The length of time that it took for one of them to reply was not awkward, it was something between the three that they'd carried back from the war. The silence meant they were thinking, processing the different outcomes in their head. Between the minds of a strategist and a businessman, they both took their time, never saying something they didn't mean. That's why when Sakamoto took a breath in to speak, he gave him all of his remaining sleepy, drunken attention.

"I think that the fact that we three can sit 'ere like this is proof enough."

Katsura let his head fall onto the back of the sofa, arms crossed, closing his eyes to finally drift asleep. "I hope I live to see it."

Gintoki doesn't say anything, he doesn't need to. Sakamoto was already well on his way to passing out, if not already, and Katsura had taken the words right out of his mouth. He sits in the morning's darkness, reveling in its peace and quiet. It's a while before he joins the other two in sleep, and like most nights, his last thoughts are about how maybe one day, he can come out of hiding in his own home.


	3. Chapter Three

Gintoki wakes up with a splitting headache, sun in his eyes, and Sakamoto snoring in his ear. He doesn't know when the other perm had rolled onto the table exactly, but he wasn't about to sit and question it. Yawning, he gets up and closes the blinds, preventing the sun from waking up Katsura like it'd done to him. Gintoki slips into his room, careful not to make too much noise, and changes his clothes to get ready for the day. It was nearing nine in the morning, a time that was typically taboo for him and once more, he doesn't know why he's awake.

He hears Katsura rustling around, getting up and fixing his sleep disheveled yukata. Buckling his belt in place, he exits his room and has to immediately stifle a laugh. Katsura's hair is poofed at the top, which, he's not quite sure how that happened considering the man typically sleeps like a statue― and there's several knots and tangles around the bottom that make him look like a child's unkempt barbie doll.

Katsura quietly clears his throat, whispering, "May I borrow leader's hairbrush?"

Gintoki gives him a Look, and proceeds to go and rummage through the bathroom's messy drawer that Kagura kept most of her girl stuff in. Nail clippers, ointment of some sort, hair ties, chalk, nail polish, his lip gloss the he uses for Paako which he'd been trying to find for at least a month now, lotion, perfume, Shinpachi's lost right sock, and a comb; that would have to do.

Heading out of the bathroom, he doesn't get but two steps in till there's a knock on the door behind him. Katsura and him exchange a glance, which told Gintoki that he hadn't felt the stranger come up either. Gintoki tosses Katsura the comb, turning around to see who the visitor was.

He slides open the door, peeking his head out, dead fish gleam in his eyes. Mutsu looks up at him, tilting her woven hat back into place. "Oh. It's you."

"I've come to collect my captain." She monotonously states.

"Please, take him." Gintoki moves aside to let her in, shutting the door behind her. Mutsu walks in, acknowledging Katsura's presence with a bow, before going over to her commander. She picks him up, putting him on her back while he continues to snore away.

"Awfully early for you two, isn't it?"

Gintoki shrugs, glancing over to Katsura who's trying to run his fingers through the knots in his hair. "Is what is it."

"Why's Katsura's hair floating?"

"Don't question my drunken masterpiece!"

She smiles, turning to leave and Gintoki follows her back to the door to see her out. "Oi_._"

"What is it?"

"He told us last night that he'd asked you before. I'm just letting you know that we won't turn him if you don't think he should be." Mutsu looks at him for a moment, Sakamoto drooling onto her back, then gives him a nod in reply. She leaves just as quietly and quickly as she came.

"I got you a comb, bastard. Why're you using your fingers still?"

"Because the ones in the back are hard to get out. I might be immortal, but my hair did not get any easier to maintain."

Gintoki groans, holding his hand out. "Lemme see it." Giving in with a sigh, Katsura handed him the comb. He immediately goes to work on the _actual nests _intertwined in the other man's hair, taking care not to pull too much on them. Not that it was tremendously hard, Kagura was always making him comb her hair for her when she was too tired or lazy to. Gintoki didn't mind, he wouldn't have his kids forever and that was okay, he was going to cherish them while he could.

"I don't know how you managed to do this."

"Alcohol works wonders." Zura states, examining the ends of his side bangs for split ends. "Not that you have much room to talk with that mop you call hair-" Gintoki yanks on the knot, ripping it free from itself― Katsura shrieks.

It's well after noon when the two finally step out of the house, Katsura leading the way. They both had woven ajirogasa hats on, partially because the sun and partially because they didn't know what they were going to find when they reached their destination. Thankfully, they blended into the crowd well; most of the populous had some sort of cover for their head, be it an umbrella or a hat, because the sun had decided to spew actual rays of fire onto Japan today. Not only that, but he was wearing his black shirt and pants, yukata properly over both shoulders to avoid the light from hitting his arms; and for the first time in fifteen years, he felt like he was sweating.

Surprisingly, even with the blaring heat, the crowds are thick and hard to navigate through. Katsura eventually ends up several yards away from him and although he has no problem keeping up, he doesn't know where he's going at all. Trying to watch for one hat in a crowd of many while not stepping on someone's foot or getting stabbed in the eye with the side of an umbrella was difficult to juggle, even for a vampire.

Someone he passes by complains about a smell and it doesn't take him but a few steps to figure out what they're talking about. It's _putrid_, and all too familiar. Gintoki sees Katsura walk off to the side to allow him to catch up, which he's thankful for. The stench is beginning to lodge itself in the back of his throat it's so thick, and it only gets worse when Katsura finally stops in front of the warehouse. There's no denying it, the source of whatever was contaminating the streets was inside of this building.

Katsura motions for Gintoki to follow him, and they turn into the alleys behind it, not wanting to enter from the front and cause a commotion about whatever they were about to find. Katsura motions upward to the rooftop, and in a blink, disappears with only a vague black smoke trail to follow. Gintoki's right behind him, and it takes only a second to scale the side of the building and float through the open window at the top of the roof. He's not quite sure where humans got vampires transforming into bats from, but the sight before him doesn't leave much time to question it.

There's bodies on top of bodies, at least a hundred, and Gintoki regrets teaching himself how to breathe again. The stench of corpses decaying in a sizzling hot and damp warehouse immediately brought him back to summer days on the battlefield. Except this time, it wasn't only men littered across the ground. Women, children, elderly... whole families killed in a single instant. No one was spared from whatever created the scene before them.

"This is…" Katsura trails off, not knowing where to begin. "I would imagine that our man is not breathing anymore."

"Well, we might as well check and see." He says, pushing over the body of a older man to look under him. There's blood everywhere― open, nasty slices. They were quick and easy kills. Gintoki groans as he turns over a particularly gruesome corpse. Although the people are not alive, the beast is beginning to grow impatient, needy, restless; clawing at him once more. He was planning on eating tonight, following his three day schedule like normal; but this was quickly deteriorating his tolerance. He can feel his fangs digging into his tongue, begging.

If Katsura's struggling too he can't tell, the other is too focused on finding Yushiro than anything. Meanwhile, Gintoki's just hoping he doesn't stumble upon any of his missing women in here. He's never had to tell a client before that the person they were looking for had been killed, and he certainly doesn't want to start now.

There's trampled on beds all scattered around the floor, along with various common living items like blankets, drinking bottles, silverware, plates, children's toys, and what looks like rations. These people were living here, hiding maybe, but from what? This was certainly no criminal organization like Katsura had suspected, possibly a cult of some sort, but very clearly not where gangsters and terrorists sat to discuss their next evil deeds.

"Gintoki, I found him." Katsura calls from the other side of the warehouse and Gintoki blinks over to his side. Sure enough, at his feet lay the body of Kawahara Yushiro, one of the two men that had been given to him by Otose. His face was definitely familiar, he'd seen him around the bar multiple times. "What're you thinking?"

"That there's something bigger going on in this town that we might suspect." Katsura hums in reply, agreeing. They're still missing something though, and he can't quite pinpoint what it is. There's… an echo, it's faint but most definitely not his ears playing tricks on him. It was almost as if water was gently running somewhere near them. "Oi, Zura, you hear that?"

"Indeed. I've been wondering about it, but I was too concentrated at the task at hand to look into it. I believe it's coming from below the building, look for a trapdoor or something on the ground." Katsura states, pointing in the direction he wanted Gintoki to take. "It's not uncommon for shady areas such as these to have hidden passageways in case of emergency."

Gintoki flips over a futon, dust flying up from the ground. "Well it sure did these people a bunch of good, didn't it?"

"This was most likely done by another kindred, Gintoki. That would explain why the bodies are so clustered and why the front door is still locked up tight. They probably came in from the same window we did." Katsura pauses, examining the wounds on one of the female corpses. "I'm not saying it's not possible for a human to inflict such wounds because we know it is, I just have the sense that's not what happened here."

Gintoki doesn't say anything back, opting to instead roll over bodies in search of where ever the echo was coming from. There's a cluster of supplies and boxes in one of the corners of the warehouse and tired of flipping over the dead, he blinks over to it. The obvious aroma of food from inside the wooden crates had blocked the smell of dirty water but, once he moved them out of the way, he was greeted with the lovely scent of the city's sewers. He calls Katsura over and lifts the door's cover up so the terrorist could hop down and check the inside of the tunnel.

At the same moment, there's the snap of metal on the other side of the door, and all he can do before it's slid open is kick Katsura down the hole and cover the entrance backup with boxes. "Go! I'll meet you back at my apartment!" He whispers, and the Shinsengumi burst through the door, sunlight pouring into the warehouse behind them.

"Holy shit…" Says one of the men, and it's a voice he recognizes immediately. "It's a fucking slaughterhouse in here… Shut down this area! I want it taped off at least a hundred and fifty meters down, go! Go!" Half of the men with him scurry off to go start taping the area off and Gintoki knows it's only a matter of time before their eyes adjust and he's spotted.

"F-fu-fukucho! There's a man down at the end of the warehouse, standing! He's alive, sir! Shall we go in for the arrest?!" He can see Hijikata staring at him, cigarette smoke blown out of his nose. Gintoki stares back, hoping his dead fish eyes will make him look actually dead.

"No. Not yet." The vice-commander replies, taking slow, deliberate steps towards him. "For now, go tell the shop owners around here that it's closing time. This part of the street is shut off till further notice." The remaining Shinsengumi members salute, jogging hesitantly away to go perform their orders. Hijikata hasn't taken his eyes off of Gintoki and he knows his suspicions are back. He really doesn't want to kill this man, but he will if he has to. "I knew you were a shady bastard the moment I laid eyes on you… what, three days ago? Should've arrested you on the goddamned spot."

"Officer, I believe that's against something called _due process." _

"It's not against something called probable cause, though." Hijikata snaps back and there's fire in his eyes. Gintoki's sure there's some in his, too, because goddamn it all― he's fucking starving. Thankfully enough, he's got one last ounce of willpower left to keep his fangs hidden to give him an actual fighting chance.

"Ooo, so scary, what are you gonna do? _Search me?_ There's a coupon for dog food in my pocket if you want that, office-" Hijikata slams Gintoki against the metal wall, holding him with a tight grip on his throat. In another life, such brutish treatment would've hurt, but now Gintoki's only worry is playing the game. He winces, pinching his face up with a grimace, and lightly pushing on the other man's arm in a feeble attempt to move it from his neck. Gintoki's had enough practice faking human emotions, he'd been doing it even before he was turned and so far, Hijikata's eating it up.

"I'm only going to ask this once, so listen up." The grip on his neck tightens, and Hijikata spits his cigarette butt onto the ground. "What in the actual hell are you doing here, bastard?!"

"I'm looking for some of the missing women, like I'm sure you are..." Gintoki chokes out his words, deciding that even in this predicament it was better to tell Hijikata the truth. Well, most of the truth. The officer glares, and there's nails now digging into the back of his neck. "I told you, didn't I? I'm the yorozuya around here, people come to me too for their missing loved ones, and often times before you, vice-commander..."

Hijikata's face turns into something sour and he practically throws Gintoki away from the wall by his neck. He stumbles forward, rubbing the place where Hijikata's hold on him had been so the other couldn't see that there was no marks. "Oh, so I'm supposed to fucking buy that?"

"It's the truth." Gintoki retorts blandly, biting on the inside of his cheek to keep his calm while his last few nerves start to fail him.

"How the hell did you even get in here, then?"

"Front door, just like you guys."

"We had to _cut _the door unlocked."

"Yeah, because I locked it when I came in."

Hijikata glares again, and his hand is resting on his katana's handle anxiously, his pinky finger twitching ever so often. "Why's the window up there open?"

"Hell if I know! It was open when I came in. Why do you think the streets reek so badly, hmm?"

Hijikata's watching him, every move, every reply― all analyzed and rated within mere seconds. He kills kindred for living, he knows how they hide and lie, dancing around the truth with little games. Gintoki also knows he's walking on thin ice, but then again, what's new? He's had fifteen years to craft his masks and assume their roles, and he was confident in his acting skills.

"So you're telling me you walked in here, locked yourself in with a hundred rotting corpses stuffed in a dingy, blazing hot warehouse just so you could freely browse through bodies? _Are you fucking kidding me?_" Hijikata says with a bite behind it, and Gintoki can feel the tension rise in the air as the vice-commander tightens his grip on his sword. "Sounds like you're either a poor excuse for a thief, or a vampire."

Gintoki genuinely chuckles, not expecting that to be thrown out so freely. He's putting him through quite the test, Gintoki's actually pretty impressed. "Good thing I'm neither one of those."

Hijikata snorts, "So you at least know of them then. Should've seen that coming from a mile away."

"I don't know how many times I'm gonna have to repeat this for you, but I'm a Yorozuya. I have my hands in a little bit of everything."

"That doesn't sound like something you should be telling an officer."

"Oh, but it is." Gintoki begins to walk over to the body of Yushiro, Hijikata sceptically following behind him. "Kawahara Yushiro, visited the Snack Bar Otose frequently and was involved in Katsura Kotarou's gang before mysteriously going off the grid. I was looking into him as someone who could maybe been the kidnapping women but so far none of the women I've found here were the missing girls."

"You know Katsura?" Hijikata says, narrowing his eyes at him questioningly. Gintoki just holds his hand up, stopping the thought process of the other.

"I know _of _Katsura." There's another sceptic glare and Gintoki knows that Hijikata's a little interested in him, or at least with the intel he has on the situation. "So far, we've got over ten women kidnapped off of Edo streets and men are being cold bloodedly massacred in alleys. Now―" Gintoki waves an arm to the bodies littered around him. "We've got this whole situation to deal 's no way in hell all of this is not connected, don't you think so, officer?"

Hijikata doesn't say anything, instead he watches Gintoki smirk, stepping over a body to get face to face with the vice-commander. "You need me, Hijikata. Where you can't cross the line, I can." There's a pur in his voice, a enticing smirk on his lips― a charm he mastered to feed was now being used to keep him hidden and possibly, to save his life. He tilts his hat back to look more inviting, whispering, "We'd make a great team, _Hijikata-kun..._"

Hijikata doesn't say anything, turning away from him and lighting up a cigarette as he walks to the entrance. "If you find something, then come to me. Other than that, leave it to the police."

Gintoki follows after him, a slight skip in his step. "Am I getting paid for the information I give you?"

"If you're not satisfied with staying out of jail, I can handcuff you right now. Let's see, trespassin-"

"_No!_ No, I'm good."

"And just to be clear, this doesn't absolve my suspicion of you being a kindred, Yorozuya..." Hijikata states, walking to one of the patrol cars and pulling some papers for Gintoki to fill out. "Now, I'm just gonna need you to complete these, and we-" The vice-commander turns around, pen in hand, and a perm nowhere to be found.

He's fucking _starving _and he can't handle being near that warehouse one more goddamn second. He needs to eat soon or else the next person he drinks from he's absolutely going to drink dry. He knows his eyes are glowing, and he's already cut multiple slits down his bottom lip to keep the beast at bay for a while longer. He's killed many, but never with his curse and he's not about to start now.

He's blinking through the alleys, turning corners and watching unsuspecting Shinsengumi officers pass by on the street. All he needs is one person. It shouldn't be that hard, why was it now? Pretty soon he was going to run out of alley and he really didn't want to have to do his normal routine, he didn't have the time nor the patience for it.

He comes to the end of alley and curses, tilting his hat down lower, relying on his senses to guide him across the street without drawing too much attention to himself. He needs to get to the other side of the street, to the other alleyways, and it's a struggle to just not trip over his own feet. However, his hearing is doing a good job at keeping him away from the bustling and fast crowd, and be it the beast's heightened hunger or him actually just paying attention, he makes it through with more ease than expected. He practically sprints further back into the entanglement of businesses and houses, and it's then when he hears the wet flop of a cloth being wrung out and hung to dry.

Gintoki's head shoots up, there's a woman, her door open, there's… only one other person in the top level of the house with her. Glancing quickly to make sure she was the only one who could see him, he blinks up to her, checking before he went in for the meal if the other person was around to see them. She opens her mouth to scream but it's quickly silenced by a hand and the shoot of pain that runs down from her neck to her toes; lingering like an electric shock. He walks her back into the house slowly, before she inevitably goes numb in his embrace.

_It feels so good to drink. Like a fireplace, it's warm and inviting._

The beast is so hungry. It's clawing at him, not satisfied with these small snacks. It wants a life, and Gintoki's more than willing to give into the demands. He could kill her... he _could _kill her. _It would be so easy to just let go and―_

Suddenly, there's a cry and his head recoils away from the woman's neck like he'd been struck, looking up for its source. It cries again, and right next to the bed laid the source of the sound. His stomach dropped as he watched the baby whimper, squirming in its crib, it's mother unconscious and weak in his arms. Overcome with guilt, he places the woman on the bed and grabs one of the wet rags she was going to hang up, rubbing the blood off the side of her neck before folding it and placing it on her forehead. He cuts his lip again, rubbing his own blood in the marks, and he stays by her side till the wounds heal, hanging up the rest of the clothes to dry before he left.


	4. Chapter Four

The nighttime air is chilling, the upcoming fall season beginning to usher in it's cooler temperatures. Not that he minded, Hijikata loved to roll the windows down late at night while he was patrolling in the car, to have a few cigarettes and just relax while he drove; which was precisely what he was doing.

The roads were scarce, save for the occasional homeless or drunkards, not many people were out at two in the morning on a wednesday night, especially with all the recent happenings. It was an easy patrol, which was why tasks like these were given to the less reliable of the Shinsengumi members. Of course, everyone still had to keep their eyes peeled for any sort of activity― vampiric or not. After all, there were still men being found dead in the streets, and women going missing without so much as a trace. Something was dangerously wrong in Edo, and the lack of… well, _any _leads whatsoever kept him up hours every night.

Speaking of leads, they hadn't found jackshit yet with the perm's, and the guy hadn't so much as shown his face anywhere that he or his men had seen. Hijikata had a background check run on him, which came up rather weird, to say the least. No one could get anything from the first half of his life, and the people who did know something said he was very tight lipped about his past. Other than that, they got a lot of information on the people he interacted with, such as the Shimura siblings and the old lady that runs the bar. Not that that was extremely helpful, however it was a start. He'd have to get Yamazaki to sakeout his house in the next upcoming days.

At this point, he's not taking any chances. Gintoki seems like the type to be hiding enough secrets to disappear off the radar for months at a time when the police get a little too close for his comfort. He'd dealt with many criminals like that and now with two and a half weeks gone by since the warehouse incident along with no signs of a silver perm, his intuition is feeling more and more right by the minute.

He's praying he's wrong, he wants to trust the guy in hopes he can get more out of him and stop the senseless killings and kidnappings, but he can't afford to waste time on finding someone like that when more and more phone calls keep coming in.

He's got the wife of Kawahara Yushiro to meet with tomorrow, and he justs hopes she'll actually be able to talk. They'd tried to get information out of her a week ago, but she was still too emotionally wrecked and wouldn't speak; along with everything going on in his schedule, tomorrow was the soonest date that he could make to hopefully get a lead while still ensuring her time to mourn.

Hijikata lets out a yawn while pulling into the barracks, snuffing his cigarette out in the car's ashtray. The barracks are quiet, aside from the nighttime watch making their rounds and the cicadas, everyone is mostly fast asleep in their rooms. It's nearing three, and he's just glad there hasn't been another call in yet. They typically come around this time, right before the sun starts to come up. It's a good sign, to say the least.

He makes short time of getting to his room, and after a quick shower and a lone report, he turns off his lamp and prepares himself mentally for the upcoming day, before falling restlessly asleep.

His handwriting is terrible, all wiggly and sloppy. He's having to write down his questions for Yushiro's wife, Toriko, while Kondo drives them to her house. He's talking to him about the same insane cabret girl as always. Of course, he's not listening to a bit of it, too focused on the task at hand then catering to Kondo's one-sided love affection. Not that he didn't care, he just didn't care― at the moment.

There's so many things still hidden to him; he realizes this fact as he scratches out yet another word. Between the girls, the murders, and now this massacre…

For the first time in what seems like ever, he's really at a loss with what to do.

Hijikata only can hope that this meeting will relieve some of the anxiety that's tensing up both him and the entire city. Everyone wants to see an end to the killings, everyone wants to see their loved ones returned to them, their friends, mothers, daughters; and everyone is looking towards the Shinsengumi to fix it.

He groans, crumbling the piece of paper in his hands. _Fuck it._

"Toshi? Are you alright?" Kondo asks, eyes darting from the road to him, then back to the road― checking to see if he was okay.

"I'm fine, just a little stressed out is all."

"Those long nights are starting to get to you, I can tell. You're only human, Toshi. You need to get more rest then what you're getting now." He rolls his eyes at the suggestion, like it was even an option for him; and although Kondo can't see it, he knows. "Don't give me that. You know I'm right." There's another frustrated sigh in return and Hijikata just takes out a cigarette in reply. "Vampires aren't going anywhere anytime soon, remember where your priorities lay."

"It's precisely that vampires aren't going away soon that I'm working so hard." Hijikata takes a drag, watching houses pass by outside the window. "I won't have another Mitsuba, Kondo-san."

A heavy silence falls over them with that statement, and it stays that way until they reach the residence of Kawahara Toriko. Kondo shuts off the car, and it seem only correct for the overcast clouds to begin sprinkling that very moment. Hijikata takes out a blank sheet of paper and steps out of the car, cigarette crumbled the dirt below his feet. He runs a hand through his hair, and steps up to the door. Kondo's right behind him, which is comforting, and he tries to relax his shoulders and brows before he knocks on the door.

Not a moment later, there's the slide of the door's lock being undone, and it creaks open the slightest bit. "Who is it?" A woman says, and it's not a voice he recognizes.

"I'm vice-commander Hijikata Toshiro, here with commander Kondo Isao. We're with the Shinsengumi, for Kawahara-san." Hijikata states, already trying to figure out why another woman was here in the household. Protection, maybe? In any case, the other lock on the door gets undone and it's opened for them to enter.

"Welcome, she's in her room. I'll escort you in just a moment." The woman says, closing the door behind them, bolting the locks back up. It's dark inside, there's a few candles lit and the tv is running the news silently in the living room. The air is heavy in here too, like they shouldn't be here, or make any noise. Kondo starts slipping off his shoes and Hijikata follows, glad that Kondo had reminded him to. That would've been bad. He's getting too caught up in everything, he needs to calm down or else he's not going to be able to pay full attention to Toriko's story and her body language as she tells it.

The other woman slips by them, motioning for the two men to follow her. Hijikata wants to ask what her name is, what her business is here, but it's not the right moment yet; he can tell Kondo is thinking the same thing. Instead, they're guided through the quiet house until they reach the furthest back room.

"Toriko, they're here." The mystery woman calls out, and there's no reply. However the woman seems unfazed, and turns around to ask them if they would like something to drink, which they both decline. She slides open the door, revealing a small room with a table, which sat the former wife of Kawahara Yushiro.

They walk in and bow, the door shut closed behind them. Toriko is wearing a dark gray kimono, a cup of green tea untouched growing cold before her. There's an alter in the back corner, and he doesn't have to look to see who it's for. They both sit down before her, the silence of the room blurring out the pouring of the rain and the light steam coming off the tea.

"Hello, Kawahara-san. Once more, we're incredibly sorry for your loss and hope that you can help us take measures in ensuring that tragedies like this do not happen again." Hijikata says, his voice gentle and country accent all but gone.

She clicks her tongue, turning her head away from them to the window. "Save the formalities, Hijikata-san. I have no need for them anymore with Yushiro gone. We're all slaves to something higher than us, and I'm sick of it, as I'm sure you are too." Toriko states, voice void of emotion. She turns back, locking eyes with him. "So please, if you do not mind, let's just save each other some time and get this over with."

Hijikata and Kondo exchange a look before they both pull out a pen and paper. "Well then, Kawahara-san, let's get into it."

"Gin-chaaan! I'm HUNGRY! Feed meee!" Kagura yells, standing on his back and swaying back and forth to shake him. He's currently on the couch, he's been on the couch for hours now, and with Shinpachi sick at home and the pouring down rain, he hasn't really wanted to move away from the soap opera binge session he was currently enjoying. Would Chiyo figure out that Kaneshi was cheating on her with Ayeno? Would she still be able to love him after finding out? Was Ayeno _really _pregnant with Kaneshi's child? He needed to know.

"Gin-chan!" She jumps and he groans, feeling his immortal rib cage quake with fear.

"What do you want, demon child?!"

"Food!" She yells, and jumps again. "I want food! Food! Food!"

"Well if you break Gin-chan's ribs, the only thing you're going to be getting is a visit to the hospital with me!" Gintoki rolls over, forcing Kagura to step off of him and onto the table. "Fine! What do you want?"

It's not five minutes later Gintoki is in the kitchen, cooking Kagura three omurice servings while she talks to him about how Chiyo is actually a huge player and doesn't deserve all the effort Kaneshi was putting into her, even though he was cheating. He somewhat agrees, Chiyo was kind of a bitch. Hell, in his past life he'd kill to have someone buy him out a restaurant for the night with all he can eat food. Come on, Chiyo. Are you blind?

When he's done cooking, he throws on his black shirt and pants, pauses the soap opera, and takes himself and Kagura down to visit with Otose for a while. He opens the door for her, holding up Kagura's umbrella on the way down so she wouldn't get her omurice wet. Because of the torrential downpour, it was quiet in the streets and even quieter in the usually bustling bar. Tama was refueling herself quietly in the background while Catharine snored on her shoulder. Otose was organizing liquors when Gintoki opened the door for Kagura and she came running in, anxious to eat her omurice before it got cold.

"Ah, what're you two doing out in this weather?" Otose asks, cleaning the bar's counter where Kagura was eating. "Isn't Shinpachi sick?"

"He is," Gintoki shakes off the umbrella, placing it by the door where it wouldn't get knocked down. "But you act like we didn't just walk down the steps to get here."

She shakes her head, picking up a unopened bottle of sake to pour him, which he declines, much to her surprise. He's not in the mood to drink today, weirdly enough. Actually, he's not in the mood to do anything really, so he goes around the counter and decides to at least make himself useful by washing the bar's used glasses.

"So, why are you here then? I'd typically say you're making a nuisance of yourself but you're… not, so I really don't know what to say."

Gintoki just shrugs, rinsing the soap off the cup. "Just cause." Otose seems to find that a good enough reason, and goes back to cleaning the shelf. There's a lot silence in the bar, not unwelcome silence, just silence. They're all focused on their tasks, cleaning, napping, eating, there's no conversation and that's alright. He doesn't know how many minutes pass by spent like this, all he knows is by the next time he thinks about it, Catharine, Kagura, and Tama are all sleeping or powered down― and himself and Otose are sitting quietly at the bar. He's twirling a glass in his fingers while she unwinds with some tea.

"How are things going? With you and the case, of course." She whispers, head resting on her hand.

"I haven't gotten the chance to talk to Katsura much after the warehouse incident, and I know Hijikata is going to be keeping a close eye on me until I show myself again. I'm surprised he hasn't already sent someone to watch me."

"How do you know he hasn't?"

"Well, he doesn't seem like the type to send a vampire out, and a unguarded one at that. There also hasn't been any new long-staying presences around us recently." He whispers back, the rain still pouring down outside.

"Hmmf. Well, that's good to know."

"Are you worried?"

"No, you can take care of yourself in that regard. It's when it comes to other things that I start to worry about you." She says, getting up and going around the counter to pour herself some more hot tea. He sighs, letting her go about it until he hears the sound of the pot slip out of her fingers and begin to fall. He blinks over the counter, catching it by the bottom with his hands and protecting her from the scalding hot tea that had already fallen out of the pot by letting it hit himself. Otose stumbles back, hand reaching out to grab the counter as her mind and body processed what had just happened.

He sets the pot back up on the small stove, pouring her the cup of tea she had wanted and setting it where she had been sitting prior to the incident. He looked around, checking to see if anyone had been awoken by the scuffling which, thankfully, no one had.

He goes around to his seat and sits down, the hot tea still burning into his chest. He let his hands heal, the exposed red and pink flesh mending into fresh, pale skin while Otose watched. He knew her age was getting to her. He also knew she wasn't the type to let it stop her from working and doing things she used to. For a brief moment, he wonders how much time he has left with her.

"Why'd you make so much?"

"I thought you might want some, you or the rest of them."

"Baba, you know I don't drink anything other than alcohol. It's a pain enough throwing up that." He says, flexing his hands so the new skin stretched out and didn't feel so… _new_. She just huffs, taking a sip from the cup. "I'm going to go change out of this so I can bring Kagura back up and put her in bed."

Otose nods, and watches him get up and walk to the door. He slides it open, the rain creating a stronger haze in his head but… no, he's sure he heard it. He looks back to Otose who's giving him a confused look, and then it happens again, a scream, a male's voice. He knows Otose heard that one, because her look changes and Gintoki's out the door in less than a second, gone towards the voice

"So let me repaint the story back to you, just to make sure I have all the correct information down; once we have that you can continue your evening without us." Hijikata says, inhaling the smoke of a cigarette Toriko was kind enough to let him light.

"So, you never knew your husband, Kawahara Yushiro, was involved in any gang related activity. He frequently brought around suspicious men but you didn't want to bring it up to him because you feared of accusing him of something you were assuming to be the truth." She nodded, he he went on.

"Around the last two months prior to his death, he began acting weirdly, warning you to stay clear of men with... tattoos on their neck?"

"Yes, he was very adamant about that, though he never did give me a reason as to why, even when I asked him. I tried multiple times to get that answer and he never would."

Hijikata pauses, writing that down. "Okay, so then after that, Yushiro would go missing several nights in a row. What was the longest amount of time he was gone at most?"

Toriko sighs, her eyes cast up to the ceiling in thought. "Mmm, four days in a row."

"What would you say the usual amount of time he spent at home in a week would be?"

"Maybe a few nights, if I was lucky. I rarely saw him during the day and many times if he did spend the night, he would leave sometime during the morning before I got up."

Hijikata nods, continuing to look over the pages of information he'd written in the last two hours. "Alright. So after he began these weird habits, you said he'd invited you to come to where he was staying and you refused, not wanting to leave the house. That turned into an argument where he was, quote, "_trying to keep you safe" _and you were simply wanting him to come back home."

"Yes, that's correct."

"Not too long after that, he disappeared and then the news came in..." She nodded, and he folded up his papers and stuffed them into his suit. Kondo was the first to stand up, and Hijikata followed after him. "Well, Kawahara-san, you help has been greatly appreciated. I promise you, your time spent tonight will not go to waste."

She stands up as well, walking to the altar before saying a quick prayer to her husband. "It better not. As much as I hate to say it, you Shinsengumi boys do a much better job protecting us than the Mimawarigumi do."

Hijikata smiles, and both himself and Kondo bow in gratitude. "Thank you, have a good rest of your evening." They escort themselves out, the woman from before fast asleep on the couch in the living room. As for Toriko, it seemed that she had grown much stronger since the last time he'd talked to her, and he hopes it wasn't just a front she put up for them.

Kondo goes around and starts the car, motioning for Hijikata to get inside. However, the door to the Kawahara household was still unlocked, the other woman hadn't seen them go out so she couldn't have gotten up and locked it when she left.

Hijikata sighs, opening up the patrol car door and throwing his notes in, before shutting it and turning back around to insure that their door got locked. He knocks, receiving no reply, and decided that it was best to wake up the woman on the couch to inform her that they were leaving. He once more, slips off his shoes and heads towards the living room, gently waking up the mystery woman and telling her they were leaving. She says nothing, but does follow him to the door, which was all that mattered.

He didn't know why she was acting so… upset with their presence ever since they're gotten to the house. However, it didn't matter now; they were leaving and he knew he didn't carry the best reputation in the community; it was best not to think too deep into it with that in mind.

She closes the door behind him, and it's a relief to hear the clicks of locks behind him. He opens up the door and that's when he hears it― the scream of a male. Kondo hears it too, but Hijikata ensures that he doesn't follow him and focuses on getting the interview safely back to the barracks. He grabs up his sword from the seat and slams the door, following the cry.

The rain is coming down hard and it doesn't help that the wind is picking up, flinging the droplets of water into his eyes like shards of broken glass. It's hard to focus on where the sound is because the screen of rain hitting tin roofs and glass and dirt is causing his focus to go crazy. It's been a while since he'd been on a chase like this, a few weeks maybe. The last one was Gintoki's, that was it; but even then the bastard wasn't running from them.

Now lost in the maze of houses, he just prays his intuition is right when he takes turns, never failing to look down every alley he passes by. There's been no other scream, which isn't a good sign, and he's starting to fear he's too late. The sound was so close… why is it that he can't find it?

He stops running, the blur in his vision mixed with tears from the scratchy water and his heart racing makes him wonder if he'd passed it up in his hurry. Even so, he continues forward on his path, taking more time to check and see that he wasn't missing the body or anything that a body could be dumped into.

Of course it would be raining, any smart killer knows that blood is easily disposed of with rain. Hijikata lets out a groan of frustration, having nearly come to the end of the maze of houses and no sign of any dumpster or body on the ground. He jogs forward, taking the last turn with a slippery halt.

A dumpster― and more importantly, a silver haired perm that appears at the end opposite end of the alley the very second he gets there.

Hijikata and Gintoki make eye contact, both walking forward to where they suspected the body to be stored. Sure enough, there's a faint pool of blood right in front of the dumpster, washed mostly away by the downpour, but nonetheless fresh.

Gintoki has his hand on the lid, and looks toward Hijikata for approval to open it. He nods, and the moment the lid is cracked open he can already smell metallic. Before them is the body of a man, barely breathing, neck sliced in the same manner as the previous victim and organs pulled out of his stomach. Hijikata winces, the feeling of guilt pooling in his stomach and getting caught in the back of his throat. He wants to throw up, to look away as this man struggles to take breathes in hopes his heart will keep beating with the oxygen flow. He doesn't know his intestines are ripped out of his body, that he's bleeding so bad that he's turned all the garbage beside him crimson; and the worst part of it all is that he's staring _right at_ _Hijikata_.

He can't take his eyes away. All he can do is watch this man's life drain out of him as he takes his final breath.

Moments pass, and by the time he's finally jutted out from the shock by Gintoki closing the lid, he falls back onto his ass, not caring that his new suit was just ruined from the mud and he man's blood. Not caring that the man that had disappeared for two weeks was right in front of him. Not caring that he'd just smacked the shit out of his head and that there was now a constant ring in his ears.

He'd seen many people die. He doesn't know why this is so different. All he knows is that the only type of man who could kill this brutally, hide a body, and escape the scene without a trace― was someone who is not a man at all.


	5. Chapter Five

Hijikata fumbled through his pockets, hands shakingly pulling out his drenched phone.

He needed to call Kondo.

Pressing the power button multiple times to no avail, the blank screen staring mocking and hopeless back at him. Water was running off of his nose and his hair, dripping onto the keyboard, further plunging this bad situation to hell.

Gintoki reached down, flipped the phone closed and stuffed it in his own pocket, then held out his hand for Hijikata to take. The officer begrudgingly took it and the perm pulled him up onto his feet, motioning for him to follow. Not knowing what else to do, Hijikata did as he was told, jogging along in the rain to some unknown destination.

Through the mess that was his mind, he still realizes quickly that he could easily be killed if Gintoki wished for it. Gintoki had his katana through his belt, along with the wooden bouken the perm was never seen without. He doesn't know when he had even dropped his sword, nor when Gintoki had picked it up, the past… five?― minutes had been completely a blur, both mentally and physically; he was sure his eyes were bloodshot to hell after all of the rain he'd gotten in them.

But that was all beside the point, vampires were known to trick officers who showed a vulnerability by helping them, leading them astray until they could pick them off when they had a chance. That's one of the reasons he was always so cold and uninviting. Now here he was, blindly following someone whose story didn't add up at all, who was still under suspicion of being a kindred, and who also had the only means of him protecting himself. Still, the perm was Hijikata's only saving grace from the panic attack that he was steadily coming down from, and he was going to take advantage of that for as long as he possibly could.

Gintoki leads them out to an open street, illuminated by warm street lights, rain dancing in their glow. All of the businesses on the road had already closed up, with the torrential downpour making for a lack of any and all customers, there was no point in keeping them open anyways. Gintoki walks him across the street, sliding open the doors to a little bar with a single lamp in the front of it. An old lady, a young girl, and two other women all looked up as soon as they entered, eyes fixated on him, not caring that they were staring.

He was dropped off, then Gintoki was back out the door once more.

Hijikata didn't know what to do, that's why he breathed a little sigh of relief when the older woman motioned for him to have a seat at the bar. Aside from the constant downpour and the quiet bubbling of tea, the bar was deathly silent; and he took his only solitude in watching himself in his reflection on the liquor bottle across the counter. Anxiously awaiting the perm's return, Hijikata bounced his leg on the stool's footrest, his sopping wet hair dripping tiny puddles onto the counter. He was soaked, cold, and confused; his mind still swarmed with the images of the moments prior to this, filled with the bloody gargle of breath caught in the dying man's throat.

Thankfully, Gintoki entered the bar again roughly a minute later, snapping his mind out of it's dangerous thoughts. He had a couple of towels in hand along with the same white yukata lined with blue swirls he'd seen Gintoki wearing in the warehouse. He sets the yukata and the towel onto the counter before him, directing him to the bathroom with the instructions of '_take a warm shower_.'

Of course, Hijikata does what he's told, feeling too out of place not to follow. He sets the clothes down by the bathroom sink, peeling his wet and filthy suit off of him and wringing it out in the bath. He holds up the pants, the same sick feeling from before returning to him. The navy blue was nearly black with the rain, but there was clearly blotches of blood here and there, both on the pant legs and the behind. Hijikata swallows the feeling down, rolling the pants up and setting them inside of the sink before turning on the shower.

He makes quick work of warming himself up with the water, and he's out of the shower and dried off in just under a few minutes. He doesn't want to waste the old lady's water, she's already doing enough for him. The woman, Terada Otose, the woman who Gintoki rents out his apartment to. It had taken him this long to realize it, but he was in fact, right under Gintoki's home. Which was… strange, to say the least.

Hijikata unfurls the yukata, a pair of pink strawberry boxers placed inside the fold. He doesn't really know what to say about that, so he decides to say nothing and swallows his pride. The yukata fits him perfectly, and somewhere in the back of his mind he wonders why Gintoki doesn't wear it correctly, but the thought is quickly pushed aside. He grabs up his wet clothes and the used towel, walking out into the bar. The two other women, the one with the cat ears and the one with the green hair are gone and so is the kid, and it's just Otose and Gintoki sitting down quietly at the bar.

Gintoki looks over to him, glass of whiskey in hand. "Warm?"

"Yeah, slowly getting there, thank you… Do you have a trash can that I can throw these away in?" Hijikata asks, holding up the ruined suit.

"Yeah, I'll get them later, for now just throw them down over there somewhere." The perm replies, motioning with his head toward the area by the door. Hijikata tosses them in the designated area, and takes the seat one away from Gintoki. Immediately, the stagnant silence returns and rests over the three, each of them staying quietly in their own respective spaces until Otose makes a move for the tea and Gintoki gets to it before she can.

While up, Gintoki asks is Hijikata wants something to eat, setting the steaming cup of green tea before him and leaning against the counter. "We have udon, and I've already made, like, thirty plates of omurice today so I can go make you some of that if you would like. I'm practically a professional at this point."

Otose rolls her eyes, taking a drag of her cigarette at the comment.

"Ah, udon is fine I guess…" Gintoki nods in reply, fetching a bowl from under the counter and spooning out some noodles. "What about my phone?"

Gintoki pulls it out from his pocket, the thing sad and wet, a shell of it's former self. "Dead. But don't worry, I already called your commander and filled him in on the situation. He told you to not come down to the scene, and to focus on staying well. Said they'd send someone to pick you up as soon as they could."

Hijikata sighs, the bowl of udon slid in front of him. "I see... thanks."

Gintoki just hums, grabbing the glass of his whiskey and downing the remainder like it was water. This whole situation was weird. He and the perm had never gotten along and he could tell that under any other _normal _circumstance, they would be bickering and threatening each other like their first two interactions. Besides, even without the whole vampire deal, Hijikata knew that Gintoki had at least a few crimes under his belt; it was just a intuition thing, and there were few times that his intuition had failed him.

"Your hair's still wet." Hijikata states, idly slurping noodles as he watched Gintoki make himself another drink.

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"Cause." He shrugs, making himself another drink. "Had to get you clothes. Didn't feel like taking a shower yet. Wanted whiskey. There's a variety of 'whys,' none of them that would make you satisfied with the answer, though." He says, and Hijikata knows he's probably right.

"You're gonna catch a cold."

"Haven't caught one of those in years, I'll take my chances, _taicho_."

Hijikata glances up from his noodles with the casualty of his title being thrown around and immediately his eyes catch Gintoki's. The perm is observing his subtle reactions to things, testing the waters, if you will― and he knows it. Gintoki knows that too, which is maybe why he's doing it in the first place. Meanwhile, Otose is still sitting further down the counter, the smoke from her cigarette filling the air up with more weight than it needed.

"Baba, I'll close up for you while we wait on the Shinsengumi to pick up their vice-commander. If you want to get to bed then you can."

"Pfft, since when are you ever considerate?" She says, sliding off of the stool with a strange grace. "Fine, wake me up when I need to come lock it. Oh, and don't forget to turn off the outside lantern." Gintoki hums in acknowledgement as Otose exits the bar area to one of the farther back rooms, her door sliding closed with a gentle tap.

Hijikata finishes his already cooling tea and Gintoki begins washing both the empty udon bowl and the glass. Hijikata wants to say something about the whole situation, about what they've been through thus far, and strangely enough, he wants to have a conversation with him that isn't filled with threats of imprisonment. Gintoki is quiet but loud, open yet reserved. He wants to know why, but he doesn't know at all how to ask. Should he just say something? Clear his throat? Tap his finger a little faster?

"You look constipated."

"_Huh?_"

"What? Just saying what comes to mind."

"I'm not constipated."

"Never said you were, just that you looked like it."

"I'm just thinking."

"About?"

"A lot of things." He pauses, _now or never_. "This is a rather weird situation, is it not?"

Gintoki nods his head to the sides a little in agreement. "Yeah, 'suppose so." He finishes drying the tea cup and puts it away inside of the counter. "I think what's the most strange is you haven't held me up against a wall yet."

Gintoki laughs at his comment and Hijikata rolls his eyes. "Day's not over yet, asshole."

"Be careful, that can mean many things for a someone like me." There's a sadistic grin that creeps along the perm's dumb face and Hijikata swats his hand at it, looking outside to the rain.

The officer groans, rolling his eyes. "Shut up."

Gintoki laughs and refills his whiskey glass. "In all seriousness though, you can be nice. Didn't think that was possible."

"It's rare, enjoy it."

"I will. Want something to drink?"

"Sake would be nice."

Gintoki turns around, pulling a unopened bottle from the shelves and popping it open, pouring the liquor into a sake glass. Hijikata downs it, grateful for the burn that lingers in his throat. Tonight was definitely one for drinking, just not here. As comfortable and welcoming as Gintoki was trying to make it, Hijikata could never let his guard down when he wasn't at the barracks. Not that he didn't appreciate the gesture, of course.

"I'm gonna go check and make sure Kagura is going to bed, do you want do come?"

Confused, he asks, "Why would I want to?"

"You still think I'm a vampire, right? I thought it would alleviate some of that suspicion if you saw my house."

"Vampires don't tend to keep anything vampiric in their houses. They just kind of exist." He pours himself some more alcohol, continuing. "'M fine down here, don't want to get wet again."

"Fair enough." The perm shrugs, door sliding shut behind him.

There's little light in the bar, most of it is the seemingly constant crack of lighting bolts in the sky. The sake is good, exactly what he needs after the night's events. It's blurring his senses just enough, not so far down that his safety is at risk but enough that his mind isn't flooded with thoughts of paperwork and scraping up clues already long washed away with the rain.

Gintoki isn't talking about the situation from earlier either, which helps in a way. Obviously what had happened hadn't affected him like it had Hijikata. Whatever the reasoning behind that was, he was positive that a man's dying breath wasn't something unfamiliar to him― which could mean a handful of things, none good.

Hijikata sighs, rolling his shoulders back so they wouldn't be so tense. _Fine, _one more drink.

"What the fuck are you still doing here?" Gintoki whispers to the wig lounging over his couch. "I thought if I got the vice-commander to come up then I could get rid of you, but it seems like that didn't even work."

Katsura laughs, tossing the strand of hair he was twirling to the side. "I see no vice-commander, which is precisely why I'm still here."

"What do you want and why are you sneaking into my house?"

"I came to see how you're doing." Katsura picks himself up off the couch, walking over towards his friend standing in the doorway. "Obviously not very well."

"I'm hungry, that's all. Besides, it's not like I'm going to be eating tonight, so fuck off."

"How long have I been telling you that you need to drink more?" Katsura whispers, leaning against the the wall. "Look at yourself. Well, not literally… but you're not healthy. If you don't start drinking more from people you're going to kill someone, Gintoki."

"I know."

"Think about all the people you have around you on a day to day basis, it's going to be one of them." Katsura's eyes are locked onto his own, burning. "Pushing back the temptation of drinking someone dry is what many of our kind morally strive to achieve, but when you under-drink like you're doing, you're gonna slip up and have even more blood on your hands." Gintoki groans in frustration, an annoying pain ringing in the back of his head.

Katsura ignores his friend's vexation and continues, arms crossed, unyielding, scolding. "You should know this more than anyone, it was by luck that you were able to snap out of it and didn't end up killin-"

"I said _shut up._ I get it." That statement comes out with more growl than he'd intended and there's a subtle look that flashes in Katsura's eyes, however Gintoki can't find it in himself to care at the moment. They'd been together for most of their lives, it wasn't the first time he'd hurt Katsura's feelings and it wouldn't be the last. Gintoki knows he's right, but his nerves are shot from the scene from before it's taking every bit of his willpower to maintain his composure in front of the vice-commander so he doesn't slip up and get himself killed. Agitation and need clawing at his will, fingers twitching ever so often, needy. "For now, get out of my house. I don't want the Shinsengumi rolling up with you here. Come back tomorrow since you've finally decided to show yourself after two weeks."

"Just be careful, Gintoki." Katsura says, walking over to Gintoki's bedroom so he could escape out the window. "You're playing with fire."

"Leave."

Katsura does as he's told, shutting the bedroom door behind him. Pushing aside the growing ache and agitation welling up in the pit of his stomach, Gintoki puts back on his smile, preparing to meet the Shinsengumi car that was at the end of the street. He pops his head back into the bar, allerting Hijikata as the headlights stopped in front of the bar.

The officer bows in thanks, white yukata drooping ever so slightly off of his shoulder, exposing a collarbone that made his mouth water. Shit. Hijikata says something about the food and the clothing but Gintoki's not hearing any of it, he just nods and that seems to be enough because Hijikata gets in the backseat without another word. The car drives off, it's vice-commander in tow.

Not feeling like he should wake Otose up, he turns off the lantern, locking the bar's doors from the inside and blinking through the crack underneath the door and up into his apartment. He heads straight for the fridge, pulling out a glob of uncooked beef and practically throwing it into his mouth.

The taste is unbearingly foul, what little blood resided in the meat was akin to humans eating celery on the verge of starvation. He spits the food in the sink, washing his mouth out with water, a lingering taste left unfulfilled and only more needy than before. Defeated, Gintoki makes his way to his futon, not caring how wet or hungry he was, and eventually falls asleep to Kagura's gentle breathing.


	6. Chapter Six

It's well past sundown on a saturday night, the bars and cabaret clubs alit with partying and laughter, but Gintoki only has one thing on his mind.

Hijikata had left a certain impression on him, a melody that seemed to want to replay over and over and over again in his hunger-driven madness. That smell of fear, weaknesses waiting to be exploited. The shine of a rain soaked collarbone, a man with a fog so deep in his head he could see it through his skin. He wants someone _breakable_.

All of this, yet Gintoki still had taken him into shelter, kept a pain in his side. He couldn't kill him, he knew he couldn't kill him... but right now he wasn't talking, he didn't make the big decisions. _It _did.

_It _was always right the more hungry he was, the farther gone; that feeling, a contemptuous flame that was constantly alit in the very mellow of his bones. Never satisfied. Never enough. Not until you take a life, at least. Then it settles down, for a little bit. But once you extinguish a life with this god-forsaken curse, that's it. You never simply "_go back." _

Or so he's told.

There's various energies around him, some scarcely familiar and others new to the life. He doesn't associate himself with people of his kind willingly save for a select few, and stays far away from the increasingly growing political system and their fractions as best he can. So far, he hasn't had any trouble with them and he's not about to give them a reason to cause him shit anyways.

He's walking down a stretch of Kabukicho's more seedy bars and hotels, an area he's well accompanied to. It's popular for other kindred too, a good place to find quick, easy, and decent blood, all that left a lingering taste of alcohol on the tongue.

He hasn't quite decided which bar he wants to sneak into yet, and a few businesses down a couple practically bursts out the doors, the man with an arm around the woman's waist, leading her by the hand full of ass he undoubtedly has. Their laughing is obnoxious, fueling the ever growing headache he's had since his encounter with Hijikata last night. They walk parallel to him, the man obviously showing off his inebriated catch; Gintoki can tell through the way he's walking, the positioning of his shoulders all hunched back. He's fairly young, several years younger than himself, and too damn cocky for his own good. The man laughs when Gintoki's eyes accidentally shoot a glare at them, commenting on how he looked like he could use a drink.

He says nothing in reply, walking straight past them; the man laughs once more before pulling the two into the nearest alley. Gintoki doesn't care, not at this point in time. He's too focused on maintaining the façade to think about every single action of his fellow kindred, or to feed into their pointless tauntings.

Rolling his shoulders back to make himself look some level of welcoming, he ducks into the next bar, one he frequented often with a nice owner and rather clean bathrooms. Always a plus― regardless of if you needed them or not.

As soon as he rounds the corner to the main bar area, the owner is already smiling, pouring him his usual as he took a place down at the only free seat at the counter. His name is Yoshimura, an older man with a fine taste in sake and a diligent little business in a bad part of town. He's always good conversation, and that makes Gintoki look better for those around him who happen to be watching.

And there's a few people doing exactly that, he can feel the lingering of eyes trailing him when he shifts, waiting for an opportunity to move in. Which comes but a moment later, the two people next to him sliding Yoshimura money before hastily exiting the bar.

What seems like a pair of friends comes up and immediately takes the momentarily empty seats, the woman buying Gintoki another sake with a wave of her hand and an all but innocent grin. She explains rather bluntly that they were in a competition to see which one of them he'd hook up with, and the loser had to pay the tab for the night. She's got her arm resting confidently slumped on the countertop, her short kimono like dress showing off her toned legs and her tall black heels.

Gintoki openly inspects her, her eyes never leaving his own, glossy smirk waiting for his reaction. He can't help but laugh, both to his meal being covered and to flashbacks of his days where Takasugi, Sakamoto, and himself would make similar agreeances. He downs the rest of his sake, shaking the hand that was held out to him.

"Good!" The woman practically purrs, tossing her silky, curled black hair behind her. "My name is Matsuda Nemura, but you can just call me Nene~ " She turns in the bar stool, allowing Gintoki to get a good look at the guy behind her. "He's Akito." The man is quieter, definitely less outspoken and confident but has a decent face and build. Both are a fine choice for him, it's just up to who he can get out the bar first.

"Did you drag him out tonight?" Gintoki laughs again, making sure the air was clear and comfortable, pushing back the ache further. _Just a little while longer._

"Looks like it, right?" She giggles, ordering herself a drink. "No, he's here of his own accord, believe it or not. He wouldn't have agreed to the bet if I had forced him out." Nene winked at him, nudging Akito's arm with her own.

The conversation ensures steadily for another thirty minutes, Gintoki idly inputting information and answering questions to stay in it, but not too invested. He's got other things to worry about than simply a bet made between two friends. No doubt about it, if he were any other man, he would have chosen Nene, with her gentle touches and calculated grace. But Gintoki is not any other man, and there's something… different that's calling him to Akito. He's sarcastic, reserved, his personality more fitting to Gintoki's mood and needs tonight. An easier catch. Nene looks like a good time, all three of them know it, but she's just not what he's looking for. Besides, with how much she's drinking it's going to catch up to her soon, so either way Akito would be faster to sneak out the bar with.

The four days of not eating is catching up to him, quickly. There's a nonexistent grumble in his stomach; an aching need for fulfillment and momentary satisfaction. Alcohol can only suppress a fraction of life's troubles, and it's fast approaching it's end for Gintoki's tonight. Besides, as nice as the bathrooms were, he wasn't looking to throw up in them before eating.

Soon enough, as predicted, Nene excuses herself, battling her way through the drunken karaoke station to the restrooms. He leans over, whispering in Akito's ear while he refilled the man's sake glass for him, hand gently pressing against the other's back. His next meal downs the alcohol like it was his first glass of the night and tells Yoshimura that the tab was on Nene. The bar owner waves him goodbye as they leave, and they're far gone before she ever realizes it.

Now typically, Gintoki would just stop the night here, get what he came for and leave, but this time is something different. Aside from the need scratching rather painstakingly within his throat, there's also a burn growing more prominent in his gut, one he hasn't soothed in a little over a month. He could stop, he doesn't need sex like he used to, but he's already set on the path for the hotel and he's in just the mood for fucking someone into the mattress.

Akito's just a little over twenty-one, and from how he acts, fairly new into the dangerous Kabukicho nightlife. He almost feels bad, but there's a certain lack of empathy he's missing currently and right now he wants nothing more than a warm body, virgin or not.

They swing into the nearest hotel, Gintoki quickly paying and leading Akito up the stairs to the third story room. The walls are a dark grey, accented by the warm lighting and various crimson embellishments. There's a balcony too, and on the nightstand lube, condoms, and a pack of cigarettes. Akito excuses himself, already knowing his roll, which is a bit of a underestimate on his part. Gintoki doesn't dote on it however, and lights up a cigarette as the shower water turns on. He gets undressed, taking the time to fold his clothes somewhat decently and places them in the nightstand's drawer next to the bed.

This should be nice.

By the time that Aki gets done, Gintoki's gone through two more cigarettes. He puts down the one that he was currently smoking and gets up to turn off the lights as Akito settles under the thin sheets. God damn it all, he was hungry. This might not have been the best idea he's ever had, because he can feel the small transformations edging to come out; his eyes faintly glowing in the darkness of the room. Not like it really mattered, his partner wouldn't remember most of this by the time that tomorrow morning fell anyways.

Gintoki climbs into bed like a predator to it's prey, and Akito's arms instinctively wrap themselves around Gintoki's neck, pulling on tuffs of his hair. "I must warn you," he whispers, nails trailing down, slightly scratching the sensitive skin on the other's stomach. He can hear Aki's heartbeat speed up and his toes curl with the touch. "I'm a bit of a S."

Akito smirks, eyes locked with his own, "It's alright, most of your kind is." Gintoki says nothing and his body doesn't falter or indicate that he was surprised at the other's comment in any way. Akito laughs at the lack of reaction, arms flopping down onto the pillows playfully. "It's okay, that's precisely why I took on the that dumb bet in the beginning. I'm one of those who are hooked on your kind."

"If my name _ever _comes out of your mouth after tonight, you're dead." The threat, although whispered, is filled with conviction; his eyes never straying from the human's.

"Not the first time I've heard that, and look― I'm still here~" Gintoki snorts in reply, allowing his teeth and nails to grow, his crimson eyes already long aflame in the darkness. "Don't take it so seriously, Sakata-san… Let's just have fun. We have mutually aligned interests, after all."

Gintoki doesn't say anything, having completely underestimated this man. He sighs, hands continuing to trail down skin, scratching harder, making sure to leave tender marks in their wake. Akito's hands grab fist fulls of hair, pulling as Gintoki sucked a mark on his inner thigh. There's a silence in the room, a reality he plans on completely switching in the next few seconds.

"If you're so used to this," he says, taking Akito's cock into his mouth and sucking all the way up and off with a pop. "Then why did your heart start to race so much when we started?"

"Partially because of the thrill of sex and partially because I know I'm- _ah! _playing with fire, Sakata-san…"

Gintoki hums in reply, licking his way around Akito's length before dropping back down. His fangs were out, a power that was now completely out of his control, so he had to be overly careful he didn't cut a giant gnash in his partner's penis.

"Bloodplay is a yes, I'm assuming?"

"As long as I live to see the next day, sure." Gintoki chuckled, replacing his mouth with his hand and immediately going back up to Akito's already marked up torso, cutting little lines into skin and licking them clean, the flesh dancing underneath his lips.

As a starving man, he could only take so much more of eating crumbs while the main dish lay perfectly fine in front of him. He was hungry, but still in control― held mostly together by the amount of alcohol in his immortal system; so he trusts himself when he goes up to Akito's neck and sinks his teeth in, taking just enough to give the other man just a taste of what he'd set out for tonight.

_The captivating sting of being embraced._

He doesn't know what it's like, only the blinding pain of death and rebirth. He can't attest to his own experiences, however the splash of warmth between them and trembles beneath his touch speak for themselves. Gintoki licks the wounds clean, allowing Akito a moment to come down from his high while reaching over and popping open the cap to the lube. There's a wave of contagious warmth that flows through his skin from the body underneath him, and it's times like these that bring him back into reality. He wipes his mouth clean with the back of his hand, smudging a bit of blood from his lip to his cheek. Tonight was going to be long for both him and his mortal partner, but it would all be well worth the fight for patience.

Hijikata awakes to the smell of dew and the morning's sun, dust hanging in the warming rays like a miniature constellation. He pushes aside the covers to his futon, his hair tangled around his neck and a mess in his face. The house is quiet, save for the birds softly talking to each other in the courtyard and the buzz of bumble bees loitering around in the flowers outside his door.

He stands, wooden floor boards aged by the countryside's cold winters creaking underneath his bare feet. The mirror on the other side of the room immediately insinuates him to find his comb and brush out his locks before someone walked in to see if he was awake. Tidiness was always a discipline to the family― hell, with his record he couldn't afford a bad hair day while a guest was around.

After his hair was tangle free and secured by a ribbon, he opened his door to the sunlight, eyes having to adjust to it's shine. Across the courtyard sat Tamegoro, equipt with a book in his hand as he leaned against the black pine. As soon as he noticed Hijikata's presence, he turned his head, smile as warm as the sun kissing his skin, closing his book.

Hijikata practically pranced over to his brother's side, sitting down next to him and peeking over his shoulder to see what book he was reading. Even as a teenager, his respect for his older brother had not dissipated into a teenage rebellion like it had for so many other aspects of his life. He still carried the same childlike wonder and admiration he had in his earlier years.

"Good morning, Toshiro. What plans do you have today?" Tamegoro says, voice light as the flowers.

Hijikata smiles, head falling back against the pine as he looked up at the sky through the leaves. "Ah, I was thinking about going to visit Mitsuba."

"Well, it's rude to leave a lady waiting. She knows you're coming?"

Hijikata snorts a small laugh out. "Of course. I remember what happened last time I didn't tell you."

Tamegoro chuckles, the hand that had been keeping his place in his Matsuo Bashō haiku collection opening back up to his page. "Come back before the evening, then."

Hopping up and dusting off his kimono, he set out through the back entrance to the house for the Okita's, the rice fields on either side of him swaying delicately with the summer's warm breeze. It takes him a while of alternating between light jogging and speed walking so he doesn't show up to Mitsuba's house looking and smelling like a pig. It's a while later he finally gets there, only lightly sweating and still looking like he could pass for a wealthy farmer's son and not the worker under him.

He knocks on the door, trying to keep his smile from becoming too out of character. Her younger brother and honorary member of the dojo at his age answers, allowing him in with directions to her room, which of course, young Toshiro felt all too scandalous at the idea of coming into her household without her specific invitation, nevertheless her room.

He warily shuffles his way through the house, stopping only when he had reached her bedroom door. Kneeling in front of it, he knocks on the shoji with three gentle taps, all going unanswered. Sougo waves him in with a single hand, red eyes deathly pale, staring as Hijikata reached to slide the door to the side. He looks ahead, a pit somewhere in his stomach growing, knotting, threatening.

There's a futon in the middle of the room, covers pulled all the way up to the top, a body in the middle, unmoving. Seemingly materialized from nowhere, the smell of rainwater immediately engulfs his nose while his eyes begin stinging like he'd just got done swimming in the pond. It's hard to breathe, and when he looks over to Sougo to receive some sort of help for the unnatural flood of feelings, the boy has vanished, leaving him alone in a house that was not his.

The futon is calling Hijikata to its side, and he anxiously crawls over, hand inches away from the side of the fabric. It wants Hijikata to open it, the lump underneath its covering motionless to his presence. Hesitantly, as if it would bite if he wasn't careful, he closes his eyes and takes the blanket in hand, slowing peeling it up off of the thing underneath. He's holding a breath he wasn't aware of until it got caught in the middle of his throat at the sight before him.

The body of Okita Mitsuba, barely breathing, neck sliced below the ear and organs strewn messily out of her torso. He goes to scream, yell, _something_― but nothing comes out other than a small, ghastly pitch as he scrambles backwards. He's hyperventilating, the oncoming threat of last night's dinner scrambling around like ants in his stomach. She struggles to breathe, with every exhale a bloody gurgle stopped it in its tracks as the intervals between each one grew shorter and shorter. He can't look away from her eyes and their sickly redness, mere steps away from death. He watches her take her last breath as he stayed frozen in place, unable to do anything but stare back.

Hijikata gasps, head shooting up from his desk, hand reaching for a sword that wasn't at his hip. He's crying, more so sobbing, as he struggles to find a sense of leveled breathing. He wipes his eyes with the cuffs of his jacket, beads of sweat dropping onto the report he'd been working on before he had dozed off.

It's dark out, and the only ounce of light that's illuminating his room is from the crack underneath the door. He must've been asleep for a decent amount of time considering the fact that no one seemed to have come in and bothered him at all during his unwanted and much unwelcome nap.

Stripping his jacket off and yanking the cravat from the chokehold it had around his neck, he stumbled to his feet, grabbing his favorite blue yukata and heading straight for the bath. His white button up shirt was caked onto his skin, the anxiety from the damn nightmare still running through him.

He turns on the water to a decently cold setting, hoping that it would chase out all of his body's current plagues. He's in and out in a second, ducking back into his room and fishing out his sake from it's reserve, much needed. He checks the time on his clock, eleven forty-two pm. Hijikata groans, downing the small glass. Not a second later, Sougo peeks his head in through the door, knocking always too much of a hassle for him to achieve.

"Hijikata-san, what are you doing in here? Nothing unfit of the vice-commander, I would hope." He says, snotty little monotone voice annoying him just like it had for the past decade.

"What do you want?" Hijikata says, picking back up his dip-pen from where it had made a blob of black ink on the report. "Surely more that to accuse me of behaviors you have no right to, being the sadistic bastard you are."

Sougo laughs at the remark, twirling his face mask on a finger. "No, Kondo-san told me to tell you that the Mimawarigumi have had another murder happen in one of their districts."

Hijikata curses, fist grabbing a handful of his own wet hair. "You've got to fucking kidding me…" There's a pause as he thinks, "This is like the thirteenth dead!"

"Well, a hundred and seventeen if you count the hundred and four from the warehouse."

He groans again, wanting nothing more than to shove the pen through the desk. This investigation was getting nowhere, even with his best men at the lead. This was their should all be good at tracking down vampires for god's sake, most of his investigators had been working in the field for more than six years, having come from the countryside and the Roshigumi like himself. If they _knew _how to do this, then why was everyone at such a loss? What was different?

He kicks Sougo out, stress once again pinching his shoulders up as he tossed the various extremities around in his head. Hours pass by, report after painstaking report, the dead, the missing, the scared. Never before had he had to deal with a crisis on this scale, and to work hand in hand with the Shogun as they did, that was saying something. He's at a loss, and by the time four a.m. hits, he turns off his lamp, sets his alarm, and settles into bed― having finally come to a conclusion.

Tomorrow comes and goes quickly, the afternoon sun just barely covered by the clouds as he walks down familiar streets. He needs to talk to someone, and to return a certain white yukata.

There's a still silence lingering in the hotel room, only disrupted by the sound of moving cars in the streets below and the occasional exhale of tobacco smoke. Akito is almost asleep, Gintoki on the last cigarette of the box when he puts it out, rolling over to face the human.

He speaks, voice low, passively demanding. "Does the name Miyake Kazuo ring any bells?"

Akito stays silent; however only for a moment, knowing good and well he couldn't hide anything from the man beside him.

"It's… it's familiar."


	7. Chapter Seven

"I was talking up a vampire at a bar a few weeks ago, a man by the name of Asato Takuma, worked under Katsura― I don't know if he still does or not. Anyways, he was, in your vampire sense, blackout drunk while saying all this to me. Told me how he'd been drinking because he'd just "seen a man get decapitated for some insignificant bullshit." I asked him what he meant, he told me that one of his fellow gang members, Miyake Kazuo, had just been killed for threatening the security of the gang." Akito says, tracing the cuts on his stomach midlessly while he talked.

"What'd he do?"

"Not sure. But he said how this guy… Kawahara… something was going all ballistic, yelling about how he was gonna quit the gang, cursing the lives of all kindred. I don't know, that's all he told me and I didn't want to know more. Ignorance keeps us humans alive when dealing with your kind."

Gintoki nods in agreeance, passing over the last cigarette to Akito, who graciously took it. "I understand." He slides off the side of the bed, fixing his covers up nicely before putting on his clothes.

Akito watches him make his way to the door, smoke delicately blown out of his lips as he relaxed. "See you around."

"Don't get yourself killed playing with fire like you are."

There's a laugh before he gets a reply. "Something tells me you're not one to talk." Gintoki snorts and Akito can only grin; he closes the door quietly behind him, the scent of tobacco still lingering on his tongue.

It's currently six in the morning, two days after the last murder, and he's sitting in front of the Bakufu police headquarters waiting for the gates to open. He's attending a meeting pertaining to the recent killings and the public's outrage over how the police forces have been handling it. What should be happening at this meeting is them discussing actual solutions, what will happen is multiple threats to all their jobs and lots of yelling.

He's accompanied by Yamazaki, who was just the driver, and Sougo. Yamazaki was his head spy and Sougo his first captain on the front lines for the kindred extermination effort. He has to give it to Yamazaki, for as much shit as Hijikata gives him, Yamazaki is a rather diligent hard working man once you take away the badminton racket. Sougo, however, Sougo was _mostly _a different story― skipping out on the important things. Just this morning, Hijikata had been pleasantly surprised when he had gotten in the car and Sougo was actually there.

After a couple minutes of Hijikata running his day's plans through his head, the gates opened before him, allowing them and several other Mimawarigumi and Bakufu officials to enter into the Imperial Palace. Soon enough, they reach their specific meeting hall, each of them taking a seat at their set tables. He can see Sasaki Isaburo and his right hand Nobume across the room, both of them munching on glazed donuts quietly. Hijikata crosses his arms, leaning back in his chair as Matsudaira took his sweet time.

There's whispers all around them, talks of what the upper officials in administration could be wanting to call a meeting together for, what could possibly come next after all the bloodshed. A man behind him whispers something about how the mass public is starting to catch onto the secrets that the government has been hiding from them. The man next to him says the riots would be worse if they had.

Hijikata's too tired for all the gossip, especially this early. He wishes he could pull what Sougo was doing, who had already leaned back in his chair, sleeping mask over his eyes accompanied by a slight snore. Shame.

He knew he was here for a good reason, he can't say he necessarily wants to be known as lazy either, so he perks his back up a little straighter in the chair and texts Kondo his plans for taking off work a little early later in the day.

Soon Matsudaira steps onto the small platform, face as pinched as ever, cigarette lowly burning between his index and middle fingers. He's not yelling, not yet at least, and he calls the meeting to order with a long glare around the room.

"You all know why we're here…" He draws out, emphasizing the '_why'._ "We are gathered here today to talk about how there have been over twenty killings… and not one single person avenged."

There's silence across the room, ever present guilt hanging in the air, choking them like a noose. Matsudaira continues, "_Why- is- that-?!"_ He slams his fist on the podium after each word. "The people are starting to lose trust in their government, the bakufu, and most importantly, the shogun! We were precisely put into place to uplift and protect not only the shogun's life, but his image as well! It's this insolence that is sparking riots among the populace! What have you to say for yourselves? Please, present your findings to the elects, starting with _you_, Hijikata."

Gently sliding his chair back and bowing, he opens the folder he brought containing an overview of all the leads that the Shinsengumi had collected since the time of the first murder, and begins to deliberate the case. When he finishes, Matsudaira nods slowly, then moves onto Isaboro. Isaboro's case is shabby at best, there's multiple missing links in almost everything he presents as evidence and most importantly, there's no leads.

Once done, Sasaki sits down, indifferent to the restless legs bouncing in the room and the palpable air of frustration brewing because of not only his lack of evidence, but the lack of evidence as a whole. Matsudaira just rolls his neck, the cracking of built-up stress echoing throughout the room. "Interesting." Is all he says, before he too closes the folder he'd brought up to the podium to reference.

There's a long sigh, the annoyingly bright, buzzing LED lights causing a glare to fall over his aviator sunglasses in the process. "I shouldn't have to say this, but if this becomes a further problem, expect some… _changes _in the program. That's all."

"Hijikata-san, Harda and his team think that they might have uncovered a kindred hideout and they want you to see the pictures. It's near the recent murder too, which makes them all suspects for the killing." Yamazaki says, as he's driving Hijikata and Sougo back to the barracks from the Bakufu meeting.

"Tell him to bring them to me as soon as possible. I'm tired of getting yelled at for not having any damn leads on the murders."

"Is that what just happened?"

"Mmm, technically I can't say."

"I see…"

"At least we're actually trying to solve them. The idiots at the Mimawarigumi have horse shit for evidence." Hijikata says with a snap, feeling his shoulders tense up more as each second passed. It's true, compared to Isaboro's faction, the Shinsengumi's insignificant leads made them seem like they actually knew where they were going with the investigation. Despite it all, it didn't exempt him from getting the higher-ups wrath when it came down to it. He wasn't trying to be the perfect child here, not at all, it was all just another slap in the face― a cruel reminder how terribly this case had been going, with not one single killer brought to justice as the bodies kept piling up.

Hijikata smokes his way to the barracks, thanking Yamazaki for the ride when he arrived. He shuts the door behind him, sitting down to do reports until he could find time to visit the perm's apartment later on.

The first thing Gintoki does when he wakes up is call Katsura. He knew that if Katsura wasn't at the apartment then he wasn't about to risk sleeping, so he was bound to get an answer. Sure enough, the wig picks up, and Gintoki tells him to meet him at the apartment as soon as he could.

Gintoki loiters over to the bathroom, rinsing off quickly and brushing his teeth so he'd at least be smelling like mint and not sex and tobacco when Katsura arrived. He still needed to get more money for the kid's food for the rest of the week so as soon as the night hit in a few hours, he'd be out on the town once more.

It's four hours later that Katsura finally makes it to the apartment, the sun inching it's way down in the sky. He lets himself in, not hearing the fast beat of two teenage hearts inside.

"I brought sake." The wig states, setting the alcohol down in front of Gintoki and blinking into the kitchen to get cups.

"I saw."

The one by one, cups are tossed to Gintoki from the kitchen doorway, and the perm flings an arm back to catch them before they hit the floor and caused Otose to yell at them from the bar below. "So!" Katsura says, flopping down onto the couch as the perm poured their drinks. "What's going on?"

"What's going on with you first? Why are you so energetic?"

"No reason in particular. Not yet at least..."

Gintoki furrowed his eyebrows at the answer, downing his cup of sake. "Anyways, I need to talk to you about a situation I was recently informed of. Asato Takama, you know the name?"

"Yeah, he works under me. Why?"

"He knows where or what happened to Kawahara, I'm sure of it."

"Would he be at your base?"

"Said bye to him before I came here so he should still be there. I doubt he went out to feed."

Gintoki doesn't say anything, instead getting up to go to his room to change from his green pajamas into his normal attire. Katsura follows him, bottle of sake in hand.

"How are you?"

"'M fine,"

"How are you really, Gintoki? When was the last time you ate something?"

"Last night, now get off me. I know what I'm doing."

Katsura shrugs, mumbling, "That's not the issue though…"

Once more, Gintoki drops the conversation, tightening his belt in place.

"Ready?" Gintoki nods, and Katsura is about to turn around but before he can he stops abruptly, whispering, "You hear that right?"

There's footsteps coming up the steps, heavy, unfamiliar footsteps. "That's not the weight of Shinpachi and definitely not Kagura, and Otose is quieter than that."

'They're no kindred either.. You weren't expecting anyone here today, were you?"

"Why would I invite someone over while I have one of Edo's biggest terrorists in my house?!"

"Wow, rude-"

"Shhh! Just hide!"

He doesn't have time to figure out where Katsura blinks off to, all he knows is by the time he makes it out of his bedroom, there's a knock on the door. Gintoki slides his bouken into place, preparing for the worst. He undoes the lock, opening the door to meet none other than the demon vice-commander.

"H-Hi." Hijikata unusually stutters out, handing Gintoki the yukata he borrowed. "Thank you for your help the other night..." Gintoki looks down at the blue swirls, still trying to piece together the situation. "It's washed, of course."

"Yeah. No problem."

"May I come in? I have something I want to speak with you about."

"Yeah…" Gintoki moves aside, sliding the door open a little further to let Hijikata in.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you about this earlier, I didn't think you would appreciate me using police databases to get your phone number."

Gintoki lightly chuckles, but it's more of a nervous ruse than anything. Undoubtedly, Katsura knows good and well who exactly is in his house because he's hiding his presence so well that Gintoki doesn't even know where the idiot went.

"Did I interrupt something?" Hijikata asks, sitting down at the couch, the two sake cups still sitting on the table, glaring mockingly back at him. _Fuck._

"What? I'm lonely, can't a man drink his sorrows away with his make-believe friend?" Gintoki grabs the cups up from the table, taking them to the sink. He turns around, head facing Hijikata as he spoke, hands reaching for the clean cups in the cabinet. "Just kidding, those were from last night, I'm just too laz-"

He's got two fingers in Katsura's nose before he realizes that the bastard is hiding in his cabinet.

There's a moment of silence where the two make eye contact, and Katsura pulls his hand up to take Gintoki's index and middle fingers out of his nostrils.

"Is… something wrong?" The vice-commander says from the living room, undoubtedly having seen the demeanor change seconds before.

"No, sorry― I just thought I saw a rat in my cabinet but it was just my eyes…" Gintoki passive aggressively snatches the glasses in a way that Katsura can clearly see, taking caution not to bring any more attention to the situation than what had already been brought.

He doesn't know where the sake bottle went when Katsura fled, the idiot probably has it in there with him, but he doesn't have the time or the energy to check and see. "Whiskey is all I got, that fine with you?"

"Ah- yes, that's fine."

Gintoki makes his way back to the living room, placing the cups with ice in them on the table and pouring their drinks. "So, what was it you wanted to talk about?"

"I got a lead today from one of my men..." Hijikata nods towards the brown folder on the table, taking a sip of his whiskey. "Thought maybe you might know something about it."

The perm opens the folder, skimming through it's contents. The first page was a tip on a Kabukicho club called _Essence_, supposedly co-run by two kindred he'd never heard of before. He had visited the club on a few occasions, never staying too long.

"I know the place. However, it's not new news for popular clubs to be run by vampires, commander."

"Look at the address." Hijikata says, "The last victim in this area was killed not a block away."

Gintoki shrugged, "It's Kabukicho. I'd say that area of town isn't good but this whole town isn't good."

"Just look at the next page before you dismiss it."

Gintoki flips the page over, and a collection of fuzzy photos taken hurriedly at night lay before him. They're not the easiest to make out because of the rain and the circumstances, but there's definitely the dumpster and the alleyway, and towards the direction of the nightclub there's the light trail of wispy smoke that follows behind vampires after they blink.

The photo underneath it grabs his attention, however. A tall, skinny man, one he'd definitely seen at the club at least twice, was turning the corner, presumably before he began to blink away back towards the nightclub. Although the picture was not making it easy to see, his hands are definitely bloody and there's an odd pattern of darkness to his clothing in certain places, a darkness that rainwater soaked clothing couldn't make.

"Hmm."

"Anything?"

"I've seen his face when I visited. He's definitely tied to the club one way or another. He's a vampire, that's for sure; the man carries himself like he owns the world but I never really had any intuition that he was a big shot, or that he would kill a man in cold blood like that. He's actually pretty reserved, from what I can remember."

"I sent a subordinate to investigate the facility tonight, if he reports anything, I'm going myself tomorrow night to see." Hijikata finishes his drink, setting the glass down on the table. "I'd like you to come with me."

"Huh? Why me? Don't you have Shinsengumi spies for that or something?"

"Yes, but high profile kindred tend to know the faces of Shinsengumi leaders such as myself, so if I bring you instead of a subordinate of mine, I not only have a familiar face of the club, but I also only have to worry about disguising one of us."

Gintoki has to hold back his laugh so he won't spit whiskey all over the table and the vice-commander. With a hard gulp, he grins, putting his glass down and leaning back against the couch mockingly.

"You're gonna put on a wig, aren't you?"

"Y-yes? That comes with it. Why are you asking?"

"You know, I was gonna ask you for payment but on second thought... if I get to see you dress up as a woman, you'll get Gin-san's help for free." There's a sadistic smile that creeps across the perm's face and Hijikata narrows his eyes at it before giving up with a sigh.

"Well it wouldn't be the first time... you have yourself a deal, asshole." Hijikata gets up to leave, closing the folder and putting it back safely in the inside of his jacket.

"See you tomorrow then, Miss…"

Hijikata rolls his eyes, glaring back at his recently acquired informant. "Himiko."

"Until then, Himiko-chan~"

"I'll call you tomorrow to discuss a meeting place, and I'm taking your number from the database since you want to be an ass about it." Gintoki just chuckles in reply, watching Hijikata grab up his katana and leave for the night.

As soon as the vice-commander is all the way down the stairs, he hears the loud burst of a cup falling and breaking on the counter, spreading shards of glass across the kitchen making Gintoki once more reminded of the fiend stuffed in his kitchen cabinet.

"You're making this way harder then it needs to be, just get out of the cabinet. The blinds are closed, no one's gonna see anything if they're spying, just _please_, get out of my fucking cabinet." Kasura blinks down and into the living room, finishing of the last bit of whiskey from the bottle.

"I do believe..." He says, eyes softly glowing, teeth peeking out from below his upper lip. "That if we weren't dead, we'd be alcoholics!"

"Zura, I don't think that you have to be dead to be an alcoholic."

Katsura laughs, then his face gets too serious too quick and Gintoki knows he's reached his limit. The wig blinks over to the bathroom to empty out the contents of his stomach, while Gintoki takes a moment of (relative) silence to contemplate what eternal life is going to be like with Katsura.

"Curse my lack of digestive capabilities-!" He says, fist in the air vengently as the other hand held onto the door frame as if it was his last hope.

"Don't act like you didn't hurl up alcohol as a human too, now come on; I'm trying to meet with this underling of yours before it gets to be hunter territory of night." Zura fixes his haori before following after the perm, the door to the apartment locked behind them.


	8. Chapter Eight

It's just after eleven by the time Katsura knocks the passcode on the door, a voice from inside questioning the knocker. Zura replies with a stark '_it's me'_ and there's several bolts undone quickly before the hideout can be entered. Of course, Katsura walks in first and Gintoki's but a step behind him, however the drag of several blades being taken out of their sheaths showed exactly who was not welcome.

"He's with the captain, put the weapons down." Says a man sitting at a large round table to the left, idly cleaning his own katana.

"Hiroshi, thank you. Have you seen Takuma?"

"He's in the back."

Katsura doesn't say anything else, instead leading Gintoki to where their man supposedly was. He can feel the numerous pairs of eyes on him, those few in the room still of mortal living trying to figure out where Gintoki landed on the spectrum; though, of course, he wasn't about to let anyone know his secrets.

He's lead through a series of bedrooms before ending up in what he assumed was the primary strategy room, equipped with a magnitude of ink and paper and a makeshift fireplace that had left a smokey patch on the ceiling. Gintoki, only there to observe the conversation between the two, takes a seat down at the unkempt table, full of indents from upset pens writing too deep.

The man Akito mentioned, Asato Takuma, was presumably shoveling out a previous meeting's ashes when they had walked in, and he swiftly bowed respectively before reaching for a piece of paper on the table, writing, '_may I speak, captain?' _Katsura nods his head, taking a seat down next to Gintoki.

"What's the matter sir, if I may ask?" The soft spoken man questioned, kneeling down onto his knees to continue the conversation.

"I need you to tell me everything you know about two men, Miyake Kazuo and Kawahara Yushiro."

"Well, Kawahara Yushiro was one of our men, as you know. He was good friends with a man from another gang, Miyake Kazuo. I don't know where Kawahara went after, but we were out drinking one night, the three of us and-" The man looks down to the ground, his face growing more bothered by each word. "I didn't know him well, but Miyake's gang leaders appeared in front of us. Old, powerful men. I stumbled back, they grabbed him by the hair, and in one swing cut of his head! _I...-!_ Kawahara was yelling, putting up a fight, but neither one of us could have killed those bastards―" He pauses, shaking his head. "They were strong. I don't know what Kawahara was in, but I do know they all had the same marking, some dark symbol on the back of their neck. They always reminded me more of a cult than a gang, in any sense..."

Katsura exchanges a look with Gintoki, one of a knowing reminiscent, before turning back around to their current informant. "Did the leaders say anything to you before they left?"

"Only one thing… it was something about how Kawahara had been threatening the security of the gang."

"What happened to Kawahara's body?"

"I don't know, Miyake cursed me off and I assume he buried him somewhere."

"Anything else informational you know of?"

"No sir, I believe that's all." As if he was hit by something, he stands up suddenly, fists clenched tightly. "Pardon my outburst sir, but if you are thinking about going after those men you can't!"

Katsura narrows his eyes at the statement, flipping a strand of his hair behind his shoulder. "And why is that?"

"You're too young, sir. These men are hundreds of years older than us, very powerful! I would like to still have a captain sir, no disrespect intended."

"We're just trying to figure out the story right now, what happens after that is for us to determine."

"Yes… sir."

"You've been very helpful, Takuma. Please, take the night off. And don't speak of this to anyone _else_." Takuma's eyebrows raise with embarrassment, his pale skin faintly tinted across his cheeks with what little blood ran resided in his body.

Katsura gets up to leave, Gintoki following right after him wordlessly. After a closing exchange, the perm leaves the hideout; the kids aren't coming home tonight and there's enough bare space in the cabinets that Katsura can fit in them. They desperately need some money, and working at night is so much better than going on day jobs. So, he sets out toward the nearest bar, the clinking of glasses already ringing in his ear.

It's around three in the afternoon when Gintoki finally gets the call from Hijikata, telling him to meet up by the ramen shop across the street from the club at ten later that night. He spends the rest of the day reading Jump and napping with Kagura on the couch. By the time the clock hits nine thirty, he'd just finished baking Kagura a cake with some of the money he made last night because he was foolish enough to let her go grocery shopping on her own.

Not to say he wouldn't have bought the junk food she did, if he could eat it.

He definitely would've.

He throws on his only clean yukata, the scent strong of vice-commander and Shinsengumi detergent, and lets Kagura know he'll be home later tonight― promising for big wins on the pachinko machine. He shuts the door behind him, leaving Kagura to devour her cake alone to some soap operas.

The night air is inviting, its chill glossing over his cold skin like a silk blanket. The club isn't too far away from the apartment, and the walk there is filled with people getting ready to hit the Kabukicho nightlife once more. So far, he's doing pretty well to be on his second day of not eating, and he makes a mental note to tell _the beast _good job later, that's if he doesn't regret those words as the night progresses.

After all, Gintoki doesn't think he'll ever be able to get that collarbone out of his mind when he gets hungry enough.

He makes it to the ramen shop at the perfect time, however there's no v-bang in sight. Was he late? There's a young woman standing outside, casually typing something on her phone, multiple gold bracelets clinking together and shining in the lantern light. Not seeing Hijikata through the window of the shop, he decides to ask her if she'd seen the vice-commander. He approaches, hand gently grazing her shoulder, and in an instant she's pulled a knife on him, a dark look in her familiar blue eyes.

"Oh. You're here." Hijikata says, nonchalantly putting back up his blade, Gintoki's hands still frozen, raised above his shoulders.

"You look…" He chuckles, giving a one up of the long, shimmering, maroon sequin dress. "Good."

"_Good"_ was a vast understatement. Hijikata was barely recognizable; with smokey eyeshadow and concealer covering up his bags, the long shimmery dress he wore had a slit down one leg, and sequins that reflected every angle of light. There was just enough space in the unfit sleeves to cover up his muscles when he moved, and it paired well with his short black heels. He'd even gone as far as painting his nails an accent red, to further feminize hands that were too used to swinging a sword. The wig however, that was something. Loosely curled, the dark brown hair parted to the left, floating down and hanging just outside his face, framing Hijikata's jawline like a picture. It fell just right below his fake breasts, the ends brushed out neatly. Gone was the traditional vice-commander v-cut, tucked safely behind a wig cap.

"Let's just get this over with… I'm ready to be out of this itchy piece of shit."

Gintoki laughs, motioning for Hijikata to lead the way. He pulls his other sleeve over his shoulder, feeling a little outmatched and not wanting to bring any unwanted attention from looking too out of his level.

Thankfully, the club is easy to get into. And _packed_.

Immediately there's a bar to the left side of the entrance and it's less packed than the other areas of the floor, so he nods his head in the direction of the counter and Hijikata follows.

They procure the last two open seats of the bar, taking a moment to look around and see if they could find their targets with just a quick one-over of the crowd. It's hard to tell, the music is blaring like always and the crowd of people dancing only multiplies the volume. He'd thought Hijikata's voice would have been a problem but with this level of sound around them, very few kindred would be able to pick out specific voices without first knowing the owner of that voice was there.

The bartender finally makes it down to them and Gintoki takes it on himself to order them something simple and easy. He's really trying his best to keep Hijikata from speaking, especially because the bartender was just another vampire working at the club.

One their drinks are finished, the kindred slides Gintoki's toward him, giving him a subtle wink. Undoubtedly, he believes that the perm has got himself a meal,― and Gintoki would be lying if he said he wasn't a little upset this night wasn't going to end up with himself getting a couple mouth fulls of vice-commander.

But that was beside the point.

They drink casually for another half hour, taking their time surveying the area. They've been pulled into conversation a couple of times by some different people, and Gintoki chats with them until Hijikata starts to give him prolonged glares thorough darkened eyelashes. He can tell Hijikata is not a talker, he's more used to immediate barking of orders than talking about what type of dog food people like to use over some expensive drinks and loud music. The good thing about that is it gives potential in-the-know individuals less time to figure things out, the bad thing is he looks stiffer than a board, sticking out in a crowd.

No one has seemed to notice anything that Gintoki has observed, everyone was more preoccupied on mingling rather than figuring out identity. Not that anyone cared that Hijikata was in drag, but everything about this '_infiltration'_ was centered on the fact that the vice-commander stayed hidden in plain sight and it was his job to make sure the plan goes through.

The more Hijikata trusts him, the less he suspects; meaning, the safer his kids stayed. That was the battle. He never wants them to experience anything near his own childhood.

This was definitely a kindred hotspot, with a big section of the crowd hardly there for only a fun night out. Gintoki excuses himself from the bar, telling Hijikata he was gonna go have a look around, hand gently grazing over the vice-commander's back with the statement.

The man they're looking for has to be in here somewhere, he'd seen the guy chatting with s multiple times. Walking around the dance floor yielded nothing, nor the bathrooms at both sides of the establishment; it's when he finds his way down a rather secluded hallway set aside from the second bathroom that sparks his curiosity.

It's no secret what the rooms adorning the hall are for, especially with the paper thin doors separating them. There's a couple making out in the turn of the hallway, and he quickly passes them before all of a sudden, a door flings open in front of him and a young woman runs out, fixing her dress strap, hitting him in her process of fleeing. She keeps running, a man emerging from the same room, cursing.

"I told her we didn't need a condom- _gah,_ fuck it." He shakes his head, attention now on Gintoki, shrugging his shoulders. "Plenty of other whores to go around."

Gintoki laughs, not because he was amused by the man's lousy sense of humor, but because he'd found their target.

"Tough night?"

The owner unashamedly secures his belt buckle, light-hearted grimace adorning his face. "I guess you could call it that. I've seen you here before, you're the guy with the white, unruly head of hair."

"That would be me, yes."

"If you're looking for food I can direct you to many... willing sources. Or a fuck, for that matter. Pick yer' poison, right?" He grins, leaning on the wall beside them, crossing his arms.

"Ah, I think I've already got it covered, but thanks for the offer." He pauses, the beat of the bass behind him filling up the air. "Care for a drink? My partner isn't much for conversation."

"I can spare a few minutes, you seem like a intrestin' enough guy."

Gintoki lets him lead the way to the bar, taking note of the man's physical features if the night doesn't go as planned. He's got longer hair, almost shoulder length that's half tied up in a bun, there's a scar on his forehead that cuts through his eyebrow on the left side, something he got before he was turned. A tattoo of a demon peeks out from below the sleeve of his white t-shirt, and his way of dressing definitely reflects the asshole in his personality.

When they get to the bar, he doesn't let the owner get close enough to see Hijikata, who was preoccupied with talking to one of the men they'd met earlier that night. Hijikata looks up from his drink, blue eyes meeting his own. His hand immediately twitches for his phone, which he'd given to Gintoki for safekeeping. While the owner slips his way through the line to get their drinks, Gintoki beelines for the vice-commander, handing him his phone, and exchanging some quick words to make the exchange not look as important as it was.

He heads back to the owner, who had obtained them a table to sit at and talk. He takes his drink, sitting down to let Hijikata do the rest of the work. "Thanks," Gintoki says, friendly smile taped on his lips. "I haven't caught your name yet, or what you do."

"Nishio Kimura, but most people just call me Nishio. And believe it or not I run this fine establishment, so the drinks on us."

"Oh really? It's got a good environment to it, that's for sure." He takes another sip of his drink, looking around at the crowds. "Must be hard managing this, with how much crowd you pull in."

"Ahh, me and my buddy Fukuda handle it fine. Everything's all about how good the staff is; the better the staff the less times you have to… _intervene _in ugly situations." Gintoki nods agreeingly, lips not wanting to leave the edge of the glass. "So, what about you? What's your story?"

"I run a small business. We do a variety of different things, depending on what you want."

"Small and classy with a bit of shade. I like it. So I can count on you to hide my next body then?" He laughs, and Gintoki chuckles along to the joke.

"Haha, I don't know about that one― a bit out of my usual requests."

"I'm just playing with you, friend." He downs the rest of his drink, smile unwavering on his wicked lips. "What's your name, mate? You seem like the type of man I want to keep around."

"Sak-"

The doors swing open, and there's a woman that screams out not a moment later "_police!"_ The floor of the building bursts out in hysterical panic, all rushing to the nearest exit. Immediately, Nishio jumps up and cusses, slamming his empty glass down on their table in anger, it's pieces flying across the floor. He's trying to figure out whether to abandon the club, giving up his anonymity with the Shinsengumi or to stay and tuff it out, keeping his human ploy going a little longer. It's this moment of hesitation that secures his fate, and Hijikata yells out "_Tranq him-!" _

Gintoki hits the floor milliseconds before the bursts of tranquilizers are shot, ringing over head. There's some more glass that breaks somewhere behind him, and as Gintoki's pulling himself off the floor, Hijikata's rushing over, whipping out his knife and slicing a large slit down the arm that their target had been hit on. The blood inside of Nishio rushes to heal the open wound, contaminating itself with the contents of the dart. Meanwhile, Hijikata's got him by the throat and he unsuccessfully attempts to blink away, falling short of his original destination and landing at the feet of Okita Sougo and a hand full of other highly qualified Shinsengumi officers.

Nishio cries out for help, the realization that he was caught finally catching up to him. Gintoki helps Hijikata get onto his feet, watching as Sougo cuffed him, foot holding his head down onto the filthy club's ground. Another officer rushes in, the doors now free of fleeing inhabants, and sticks another IV into the arm of the owner― the bag full of whatever substance that was in the tranquilizers, he assumed.

_Now this is playing with fire,_ Gintoki whispers to himself; making a mental note never to let Katsura say that to him again.

Nishio is kicking around, trying and failing to stop them from duck-taping the IV in place. There's no more putting up an act now, his eyes are glowing like a foul fire and no ones letting any of their body parts get near enough that his fangs would be a danger to them. Hijikata and Gintoki join the side of the other officers, Hijikata's wig and wig cap thrown into the hands of a lower ranking officer to deal with.

"You're a _fuckin' _traitor-!" He bites the curse with fever, drawing out its consonants to better enunciate his animosity for Gintoki. He spits, the saliva landing on the side of the perm's cheek. "You're no better than them! Just another bakufu dog, wagging its stupid fuckin' tail to the demands of the precious fuckin' shogun!" His words are beginning to slur, the anesthesia finally starting to put him asleep. Gintoki doesn't say anything to the slander, and he watches as Nishio is hauled up by his arms, wincing― his pain tolerance dropped back down to a mortal's.

"_You're lucky I am not in the mood to see another one of our kind thrown to the dogs," _He whispers, low enough that Gintoki was the only one that could hear the remark. Once more, Gintoki keeps his mouth shut. "You've got a snake in the grass, vice-commander..." The vampire laughs and tosses his head back with a mocking hiss, the symptoms of the tranquilizer beginning to make the room spin.

Hijikata orders him to be taken to the cells and the officers immediately comply, dragging his now entirely passed out weight towards the doors. Hijikata sighs, running a hand through his unruly hair and letting his shoulders relax. "I'm surprised."

"Huh?" Gintoki questions, using the bottom of his sleeve to wipe off his cheek.

"You did some serious shit today." The vice-commander says, smudging his red lipstick slightly off his lips with the back of his hand. "It's because of you that we were able to take him in tonight."

"I wouldn't say that; after all, I wasn't the one that drove head first into broken glass while wearing heels with the sole purpose to knife a man―" Gintoki laughs, watching Hijikata look over his mangled arm, shards of glass stuck all throughout his skin in various depths.

Hijikata chuckles, sweeping with his palm to get out what shards he could. "Just another day at the office." He pauses, "You'll need to come down to the barracks tomorrow, so we can get the full story on how this all went down. I have enough reports to write about tonight, I can save those for tomorrow."

"And if I don't come?" Gintoki smirks, testing the waters.

"Warrant for your arrest."

"So what time you want me over?"

"Around noon is fine, by then we should have everything mostly sorted out."

Gintoki nods, making his way to the exit of the building. Once more, the night wind is refreshing and it glides over his skin like gentle water; he relishes in being out of that stuffy nightclub. The walk home is short, and by the time he's reached the apartment he has to take a moment to make sure that Kagura was okay before opening the door, thanks to his anxiety of the night's events.

She's asleep on the couch, TV muted but flashing bright, illuminating her face in the otherwise pitch-black room. Characteristically, she's got stray, uneaten sukonbu still in her hand, and he tucks it away safely back in the box for her to munch on when she wakes up. Thankfully, in her pajamas already, he gently picks her up, carrying her to the closest while she snored.

He shuts her door quietly, taking off his dirty yukata, the smell of Hijikata still not gone from it. Gintoki usually would toss it into the hamper for Shinpachi to get the next day, except this time he's feeling a bit more humbled, so he starts the washer for him. He loves his kids, and he hopes his kids love _him_.


	9. Chapter Nine

Shinpachi unlocks the door, the morning dew just beginning to turn into the humidity of the early afternoon. As usual, Gintoki is snoring in the jumbled mess of his futon, his arms tossed around him messily. Kagura, too, isn't awake yet and so Shinpachi goes about another normal morning routine, quietly making some tea, rice, and throwing the dirty clothes in the washer- oh, it's done already. Weird.

Sipping on his tea, he sits down in the living room with the news playing on low so Kagura could still sleep. There's a segment on a nearby bar that he walks by on his way to the grocery store, Ketsuno Ana informing the public that the bar had been shut down by police during the late hours of yesterday night. Nothing was said on why, however, other than that they were still investigating numerous leads that the man was apart of. Throwing up a picture of the co-owner, Ketsuno Ana said to call the nearest police station if seen, and to not engage with him because he was considered dangerous.

Watching the screen run the Shinsengumi and Mimawarigumi's numbers across it, there's a noise behind him and Gintoki comes stumbling out of his room, already dressed in his black shirt and pants, taking a seat on the opposite couch. Sadaharu is at his feet, quietly snoring as Gintoki propped his legs over him and on the table.

"Good morning, Gin-san." Shinpachi says and Gintoki grumbles something that sounds like 'morning' back at him. "Did you hear about what happened last night?"

Shinpachi watches Gintoki's eyes and how they don't stray away from the toothpaste commercial when he answers. "What happened last night?"

"There was a bar nearby here, _Essence,_ you know the one on the way to the grocery store―? Anyways, it was shut down by the Shinsengumi."

"That so?"

"Yeah, scary stuff. They say that one of the guys running it was involved in all sorts of shady business. The other owner is still on the loose, too." The perm hums, running a foot back and forth over Sadaharu's back gently as Shinpachi talked. "You ever go into it?"

"Once or twice."

"Hmm..." He takes a sip of his tea, pausing. "Did you ever meet the owners?"

Gintoki tosses his head on the back edge of the couch, arms crossed. "Yeah, the guys an asshole. Bought me a drink last ni― a couple nights ago. If he's locked up it's for the best."

There it was, that stumble in his words. Shinpachi tilts his head at the older man, tea squeezed between his hands anxiously. "Last night?" Shinpachi questions, the inquiry meaning to step into carefully placed boundaries. "Were you there, Gin-san?"

Gintoki gets up, stepping over Sadaharu's sleepy dog snores and making his way to the kitchen for some unknown reason. "Not what I said."

"But you kind of stumbled in your words… and Catharine told me about that police friend of yours they keep seeing around."

"Do we have a job today?"

"Gin-san." Shinpachi stands up, his voice raised slightly as he turned to face his mentor, his brother figure. "Please do not lie to me."

There's a plead in those words― words full of worry, full of questions. Unsaid words held back by a bitten tongue, clenched fists, and many silent goodbyes. Shinpachi watches Gintoki stare out the window, hands on either side of the kitchen sink, eyes distant as they viewed whatever scene was playing outside. Too many times had Shinpachi said nothing, he wasn't about to let this be another tally on the list, too.

"Gin-san…" He whispers, the name faint as it crosses his lips but he knows Gintoki hears it. "Please, trust us."

It's only after a moment of silence that Gintoki replies with an equally faint, "I do."

Shinpachi shakes his head, tea discarded back onto the table. "You do?" He pauses, repeating: "_You do?"_ There's bite in his words, bite mounted from frustration both from Gintoki's actions and his own lack thereof. "You're really going to tell me that you trust us when you leave night and night again, only coming back to sleep the rest of the daylight hours? You're going to tell me that when you're coming up with all this money that I know for sure you didn't get from any normal jobs, because you weren't there for them! You're going to tell me you trust us when there's all these cracks in this household that can't be mended by throwing together some silly excuse!" Shinpachi yells, voice and breathing ragged, tears threatening their mocking cascade. He knows Kagura is long awake by now because he'd heard her open her door sometime in the middle of his speech.

Gintoki says nothing, which only infuriates him more. Shinpachi storms over, pulling Gintoki's right arm off the counter and making him face him. "When will you recognize it? When will you realize that we don't want you doing everything by yourself?! That you don't have to hide?! We want you safe!"

By the time he gets done saying the end of that sentence he regrets it, because the last ghost syllable gets caught in the back of his throat when he sees the face that Gintoki is making back at him. It's pitiful, but to any man that didn't know who Sakata Gintoki was, it would almost seem brave. However to Shinpachi, to Kagura, to his kids, it was a face full of regret, a face that knew he was failing.

Shinpachi draws back his hand off of Gintoki's arm quickly, like he would be burned if he held on any longer.

"I never said I was a good man―" Gintoki begins, voice low, careful. "I do what I have to to keep you two safe and secure, that is my prime concern. I keep you two away because it is a danger in itself that I am here to begin with… just let me have my distance." The man walks past Shinpachi, disappearing into the laundry room and quietly taking his yukata, slipping his boots on at the door, and leaving with his ajirosaga hat in hand.

Shinpachi and Kagura watch him go, Sadaharu sitting just to the side of Kagura's closet, whining after the door had slid shut behind him.

It was nearing noon when Hijikata got the call from Yamazaki: another woman had been reported missing. That making the eighth woman to disappear from the streets. It had been a while since the last woman went missing, with there having been more murders than disappearances recently. Of course, there was no way of telling whether or not the missing women were all connected, it was just his intuition that something deeper was going on than they knew yet.

Hijikata had just gotten back from the bar mere minutes before that call, and was in the process of going to shower before Gintoki could show up. He knew he had told Gintoki that around that time is when everything _should_ be sorted out, but that was far from the reality. The same new recruits that couldn't track down that vampire the day he met Gintoki were still giving him trouble, and he was about to cut off some heads if things didn't get any better. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

He hadn't even stepped foot into his room yet before Sougo yelled down the hall that he had a visitor. Throwing the many, many pages of reports down onto his desk for later, he marches out of his room to go meet with the perm, twelve o'clock on the dot.

Just one glance at Gintoki and you can tell something is wrong, however it's not his place and frankly, he had too much going on to ask. So Hijikata brushes it aside, motioning for the perm to follow.

"Uh, Taicho, aren't we going to screen him?" Yamazaki says, holding up the cuff they use to check the heartbeats per minute of guests and new recruits.

"No, we don't have time and I trust him. If it turns out he is a vampire I'll kill him myself, now let's fucking go already." The vice-commander barked, motioning once more for Gintoki to follow. Sougo chuckles, him and Yamzaki walking after the two.

Hijikata leads the way until they get to the on-site jail cells and interrogation room. He orders for Nishio to be wheeled into the interrogation room and to prepare for him to be talked to. While they wait, he attempts to take off some more of his chunky, nasty mascara from the night before with a makeup removing wipe as Gintoki waits on the opposite side of the wall.

He doesn't know what about that stupid perm it is, but through the thick layer of boundaries they set up for the world he feels a growing sense of… understanding―? like the two were more alike than they both thought. Gintoki had been reliable on more instances than one and aside from the clearly self-serving charismatic behavior Gintoki depicted the second time they met at the warehouse, he'd given Hijikata nothing but good results since then. And from everything his spies collected when he ordered the background check, the people around him thought he was pretty decent too.

Harada interrupts Hijikata's train of thought, informing him that Nishio was ready to go. He looks over at Gintoki again, whose eyes are fixated on the drugged up mess that Nishio was. He can't try to argue for ethicality, but the monsters were too dangerous to not be contained and subdued in such a way.

"Please tell me what you think of what he says." Hijikata says in Gintoki's direction, hand on the door. "We haven't been able to get much out of him so feel free to reference the files on the desk if the conversation gets redundant." The perm nods, pushing himself off the wall wordlessly and making his way to the desk that sat near the door.

The bright, cold LED lights that rained down harshly onto the all white interrogation room were a stark contrast to the near black room that he'd just came from. The kindred before him smirked, head bobbing and unstable on his neck, the effects of many hours of being sedated showing through the weakened immortal muscle.

"Hello again," Hijikata says, taking a seat at the opposite side of the table. "I'm gonna have you answer some more questions, Nishio."

The kindred laughs, hissing a mocking little tone, eyes glued to the one sided mirror. "He's here… isn't he? That silver headed snake."

"No, he's not."

"Oh come on, vice-commander. You expect me to be honest with you when you lie to me? Get real." Nishio chuckles, the grin never leaving his lips. Hijikata sighs, and that is enough of an answer that he needed. "I knew he was here, you know. The smell. You can take away my strength and power with your fancy medicines but the smell… that never leaves."

"I see."

"You know why I knew he was here, even without the smell? Because of you, Hijikata-san… you get so…" He trails off, dragging out the '_so'_, head nodding every which direction as he spoke. "_-soft. _You think you're putting up a good wall but we will tear that down quicker than you'll ever realize. He's already started, he has. He's got you by your throat, and he's gonna nibble, nibble, nibble, until he swallows you whole, bite by bite, that silver snake he is." Nishio hisses again, laughing.

"I'm the one asking questions, Nishio. Refrain from speaking on unnecessary topics until I grant you permission."

"Oh but vice-commander, I'm doing you such a big favor, you see―"

"Nishio, tell me now. Who were the people forcing you to kill and kidnap?"

"Ohohoh~ I'll speak now that the snake is here, he will probably find it very intrestin', he will. These men, snake, they don't like you… but they know you very well. They told me to tell you this, they knew that I would come into contact with you… After all I'm just another pawn in their immortal, petty fuckin' game." He bites the last words, the confusion that the drug gave him influencing his emotions.

Gintoki watches the interactment, face unchanging and eyes unmoving from the captured vampire. The tan haired kid, Sougo, is watching him, staring at Gintoki from where he stood by his side. Yamazaki and Harada had left to attend other business, so the only people watching the interrogation were the two of them.

"You've got some secrets." Sougo says, his attention going back to what Hijikata was doing in the room. "I've never seen a kindred behave like this one is."

"Don't you have secrets too?" Gintoki says in return, crossing his arms.

"Hmpf, yes, but I never said your secrets were bad. I hate a vampire just as much as Hijikata does but―" Sougo pauses, head turning to face Gintoki once more. "I make exceptions for those I find interesting."

"Well it's a good thing you have nothing to worry about in the beginning. I'm not a kindred."

Sougo chuckles, "But would the BPM scan say the same thing?" He quickly latches onto Gintoki's wrist, the perm retaliating in the same second by reaching across to grab the grip of the captain's sword.

"It would."

"Funny you say that, because your heart hasn't beaten a pulse since I've touched it." Gintoki's lips turn up in the form of a smirk, and Sougo smiles sinisterly back.

"The people around me," He whispers, "they know nothing."

The captain doesn't say anything back, instead staring directly back into Gintoki's eyes. "Oh, there's one. Roughly three beats per minute, the usual time taking into account that I was only holding onto you for around twenty-five seconds."

The perm snorts, hand leaving Sougo's sword as he recrossed his arms. "Fuckin' brat."

Sougo laughs once more, letting go. "Don't worry, Danna. I was one of the ones that did your research. You're not like most of them, I won't say a word." Sougo pauses, watching Hijikata. "I just wonder how Hijikata is going to react when he finds out. You two are alike, you know. I don't see you two splitting apart for a long time. Not until he finds out, of course."

"He won't."

"That's what they all say, right? And yet here we are."

Gintoki sighs, running a hand through his hair as he listened to the bantering in the room. "I didn't expect today to… happen in the way it's happening."

"Mmm, yes. So willing to throw yourself into the enemy's territory, what would have happened if we screened you at the door, like we should have?"

"Something, I don't know. I assure you I haven't survived fifteen years as this fucking creature just by luck."

"No, if you don't get taken out in the first five years you're doing good."

"So what you're saying is that these men, the ones you were employed by, they ordered you to do the hit on Egawa Kisho, the man you tossed into the dumpster, while you were also providing your club as a playground for immortals to pick and choose what women they wanted to keep?" Hijikata said, a look of pure hatred gleaming in his eyes as he recalled what the vampire had told him.

"Heh, but that was Fukuda's job. I just did the hits. He was much more… eager to join them." Nishio says back, head finally resting, staring up at the ceiling as he talked.

"Eager to join? What do you mean?"

"These men are powerful, I don't know what they want but as long as they were offering yen, I would kill. Fukuda was different, where I was in love with the money, he wanted their power and he actively sought out to join them." The vampire scoffs, "Never did understand why. It was obvious these older vampires wanted nothing to do with us but he thought different. Stupid prick."

"You never learned who they were?"

"No, I didn't care. It could've been the fuckin' shogun offering me money for a man's death and I still would have kept my mouth shut. Money is the only language I speak, if you want to know the name of the organization you'll have to seek out Fukuda. Though, who knows where that bastard is now."

"You two don't seem to get along well."

"Mmm, bastard sold my woman."

"Sold your woman?! Who?"

"Pretty whore by the name of Ogawa Sachiko."

"That's the woman that went missing earlier today!"

"They're just now reporting her? Hmm, goes to show you how much everyone else cared about her. I loved her. I was the only one." Nishio pauses, speaking just as Hijikata was just about to ask him another question. Last time I saw her was the night before Egawa Kisho's hit. She was friends with all the wrong people though, none of them were accepting of us and after her best friend's husband was killed by a kindred she found it harder and harder to return to me."

"Who was killed?"

"Kawahara Toriko's husband. I don't know his name, never did see him. Sachiko loved Toriko though, best friends those two were. The only time I ever did see fire in those eyes were when she was in bed with me and when she was protecting Toriko."

Hijikata slumps back in his chair, the small pieces of the great, big puzzle slowly locking into place; small, but pieces nonetheless. "God damn it all…"

The vice-commander pulls out his phone, informing Harada that the session was over with for today. Nishio says something about how he wouldn't talk unless the snake was there, but Hijikata is already out the door by the time the sentence is finished.

"You hear that, Sougo?"

"I did, Hijikata-san."

"Send this recording to the files room, tell them to transcribe it."

"Yes sir."

"Gintoki, what did you think?"

Gintoki gives Hijikata a blank look back, the earlier events between himself and Sougo interfering with his basic human comprehension and responses. "I want to hear the transcript again before giving you a definitive answer, can we arrange that?"

"Sure, it will have to be sometime tomorrow night because of the sheer magnitude of the bar's crime scene." Hijikata says, running a hand through his hair to help ease his stress. "Will that work?"

"It will. Drinks?"

"Sounds good. Sougo, I have to go find Yamazaki, escort Gintoki out."

"Yes sir~" Sougo hums, the vice-commander quickly out the door. "I look forward to seeing how your relationship with him goes, danna."

Gintoki doesn't say anything in reply, leaving the Shinsengumi barracks as silently as he had come in. By the time he makes it back to the apartment, he doesn't have to go upstairs to know that the kids are not there waiting for him. They won't be coming back either, not tonight, because Sadaharu is also gone with them. So he shuffles his way up the stairs, ignoring the rumbling of the beast, focusing only on the quiet of the house as he slides off his shoes, making his way for the last bottle of sake, fully intending on drinking away the day's events from his mind.

He doesn't realize he passes out, so when the next day's early morning sun rises, the burning awakening him much too early from his drunken slumber, Gintoki finds the apartment still just as suffocatingly noiseless and empty as it was before.


	10. Chapter Ten

"I thought I'd be seeing you soon." Otose says, wet cloth dipping smoothly into the inside of a glass, eyes not straying from her task. Gintoki stays silent, sitting down in a bar seat and slumping over the counter. "It's been quiet up there." She waits a moment, deciphering him and the situation before speaking again, a more serious tone to her voice. "I heard what happened."

"I don't know what to do." He admits, fingers tightening their grip in the unbrushed mess of perm.

"I know you'll keep them safe, Gintoki. I've never doubted you on that."

"I don't know how you have that much faith in me, baba. It's not like it was before."

She stops, glancing quickly over to him seemingly to confirm his words. "How bad?"

"It's… nearly consuming. That's the only way I can really put it in terms for someone who hasn't ever felt it." His leg was bouncing like he was in desperate need of a cigarette, an addict that needed his fix, which wasn't too far from the truth.

"Well, I've talked to your wig friend, he's told me that you need to be eating more." Otose says, drying her hands off and lighting up a cigarette, offering him one which he politely declined. "I don't know what the amount your "usual" is but I don't have to, because I know how you are." She leans up against the bar and crosses her arms, the stance motherly and condescending. "You need to think about yourself before you can think about others, Gintoki."

Once more, Gintoki keeps his silence. Otose watches him momentarily, the atmosphere between them stuffy.

"I know you're not going to want to hear this but that's my job. You're being selfish. Now, don't think that I'm trying to say that you should tell the kids about you because I'm not, I'm just saying that you need to be more active in their lives. None of this "it's for your own good" bullshit you probably spit back at Shinpachi when he yelled at you." She states, taking a long drag from her cigarette, knowing good and well she's right.

He knows she's right too. He knows he needs to be more active and he knows he needs to eat more. He's scared of what he will become if he loses control. Every bite he takes over the bare minimum is just one more chance for the beast to take over. He knows what that is like, he'd seen kindred succumb to their primal instincts, their vision clouded over until they finally regained control― countless lives later. Takasugi was one of them.

Otose rolls her eyes at the lack of a reply. "That night… why did you bring him here?"

"Who?"

"You know who. The Shinsengumi officer."

"Oh..." Gintoki says, "Him." Otose waits for him to answer, ignoring his attempts to play stupid. She's not playing any games with him right now so he answers truthfully, skipping by all the nonsensical responses that flashed through his head first. "I really don't know."

"You're just putting yourself in more danger, am I wrong?"

"No, you're not wrong. At first it was a mutual cause and it still is… I've learned a lot about the murders and the missing girls from the Shinsengumi but now I've just become too valuable of an aspect." Gintoki says, rubbing a circle with his fingertip into the bar counter's wood. "Now one of the officers knows, an-"

"Excuse me?!" The smoke comes out of her nose and mouth with the words, lips pursed as she turned towards him. "An officer knows what?!"

"Listen,― I didn't want it either." He barks back, the tone fried but careful not to blow up on someone else. "He grabbed my hand, I can't do anything about my lack of a heartbeat, now can I?"

"What will you do if he tells someone, Gintoki?!" She scoffs, not minding her tongue, her tone ridiculing and unyielding. "What will you do if they kill you and your kids find out about everything through someone not you? Not only that, but you put their own lives in danger! Consider the tests and th-"

"I get it!" Gintoki cuts her off, will power unable to stop the unnatural glow coming from his eyes. "I understand, I've thought about all of this a million times. But that's the worse case scenario-"

Otose now cuts him off, cigarette threatening to be crushed between her fingers. "Since when have you not been a worse case scenario type of guy?"

"Since right now!" He huffs and she huffs back, both of their heads now turned away from each other.

There's a long moment of silence that passes between them, the only noise the soft jingle of the wind chime swaying gently outside and the sound of her exhaling smoke. "You know…" She starts, turning back to look at him. "That's the first time I've seen your eyes since that day."

Gintoki stands up, a human complexion now dawned once more on his face. He mutters an apology and begins to walk to the door, Otose letting him leave knowing good and well he would be back.

Not but a few steps out of the bar, a familiar voice calls his name and he turns to the sound. Hijikata is walking up to him, one hand in his pocket, the other relaxed on his sword's grip.

"Gintoki," He says, and Gintoki hopes he didn't miss the officer eavesdropping through his not so subtle conversation in the bar. "What time are you free tonight?"

"For what?" He retorts back.

Hijikata gives him a dumb look, face pinching up. "Huh-? Whaddya mean "for what"? The drinks we agreed upon yesterday."

"Oh, right." Fuck. "Uh, anytime is fine. Whenever you get off."

"I'll be done around nine, see you… here?"

"No," Gintoki says, Otose's eye's burning holes into his back from the ajared door space. "What about the ramen shop in front of Essence?"

"Fine with me." He says, sweat lightly covering his neck, pulling on the cravat to loosen it. "See you then."

"Y-yeah."

Fuck. He watches the officer walk off towards the club, his stomach turning from a mix of hunger and sun irritation. Otose peeks her head out of the door, silent as she blew smoke from her pursed, red lips. Gintoki just rolls his eyes, walking off to wherever his feet took him, as long as it wasn't the apartment.

The night takes it's sweet time to come, the imaginary rumble in his stomach telling him he needed to eat and soon. At this point, it's just a game to see how long he can last and so far, the beast is winning. He'd spent the majority of his day lazily roaming about, chewing on a dango stick he'd snatched from the owner's stand when he dropped by.

Even in death his sweet tooth couldn't be quelled. Not that dango tasted even a little bit sweet to him, it was just the action that made life seem the slightest bit more normal.

In fact, he couldn't even remember what many of his favorite sweets actually tasted like. Strawberry milk, parfaits, dango― all smelled wonderful and delicious but fell royally short when the taste finally hit his tongue. Immortality was a curse through and through.

Seriously though, why couldn't he have been a werewolf?

On the topic of werewolves, the moon is hanging brightly above him, signalling that he needed to start making his way to the ramen stand. He's absolutely starving and as soon as Hijikata gets done telling him whatever he needs to tell him, he's bolting. Gintoki can't afford another slip up, especially not with the vice-commander.

The streetlight's of Kabukicho are gleaming overhead, giving his skin a bluish-purple tint as he walked. The streets are packed, friday nights always bringing in the largest amount of visitors to this side of the city. The air smelled heavily of booze and sweat, people indulging in whatever sins they could after work. He should be out there helping them indulge, but a certain dark-haired vice-commander had him painfully preoccupied for the better portion of the night.

In truth, Gintoki doesn't know why he's still helping him. He could find the missing girls that he'd been hired to find on his own, but Hijikata seems determined on having Gintoki's help and he can't exactly disappear without warning, he doesn't know how big Sougo's mouth is. In short, he's stuck. Hopelessly stuck.

There is nothing else to do except keep on the path he's going on and hope that the case will close soon and thus leave Gintoki with a significant reason to say goodbye to the vice-commander he's grown to be… friends(?) with. Not that Hijikata isn't a decent guy when he wants to be, right now he just has his priorities, his life being one of them. He's not about to be reckless and place his bets on going and winning one-on-one with the high-heel wearing-crossdressing-professional vampire hunter when and if he does slip up. Not yet.

Distantly he can see the club's unlit sign hanging above the streets, an array of police cars still parked out front. It's difficult to imagine that only a couple of nights ago he assisted in one of the biggest vampire hideout shut-downs in the city. Technically, he was a traitor now to all of his kind. But then again, having a "kind" didn't really sit well with him either.

Hijikata is outside the place smoking and when he sees Gintoki, he snuffs the smoke out into the ashtray next to him.

"Hey." Hijikata nods, folder tucked gently but protected underneath his arm.

"Hey." Gintoki replies back, an awkward air hanging between them.

"The uh, the shop's kind of packed."

"I know a place." Hijikata, once more, nods and lets Gintoki lead the way. It's a couple of blocks down, more of a popular human bar instead of a vampire one, because the location was rather secluded, tucked away in a bad spot on the street so few knew of its existence. Vampires usually never fed off of victims in small locations, too many eye witnesses, too many compelling statements if anything was to go awry, so Gintoki was confident in the bar's confidentiality.

He can tell Hijikata tenses when he's led down the alley, the lack of streetlights unnerving to someone of his nature. Gintoki doesn't blame him. Hell, he has every right in the world to be more hyper aware in the situation, Gintoki was in fact shoving lie after lie down Hijikata's throat every time they met, damn near everything about him to Hijikata was fabricated.

"It's just around here." Gintoki states, glancing back to make sure Hijikata was okay. The more friendly body language he gave, the better. They turn the corner of the alley and in a little nook off to the side of a narrow street, there sat the tiny hole-in-the-wall bar.

Gintoki slides open the door, the owner waving and calling out his name to him. Gintoki leads the officer to the back table, the booth seats freshly cleaned and catching lightly on his pants, the scent of the chemicals lingering in his nose. Hijikata sets the folder to the side of him on the seat, taking off his jacket. Soon enough, the lone waitress is coming by to take their order.

They both order something light and easy to sip on as they talked. Gintoki looks around the bar, seeing a couple familiar faces but no kindred, which was all that mattered. That same awkward twinge between them is still there and he can't put his finger on why exactly tonight of all nights they're choosing to be somewhat reserved. Neither Gintoki or Hijikata's personalities were what you would generally describe as reserved, which is why it made little sense. Was he being― dare he ever say it― professional? Pfft, no, he couldn't be. Gintoki had never had that.

The waitress brings their drinks, sliding them on the table and leaving. Hesitantly, Hijikata picks it up and takes a sip, silently setting it down once more.

"You ready?" The officer asks, bringing up the folder to the table. Why were they acting like this was a first date? So formal and stiff, like some hormonal teenagers.

He nods, Hijikata looking through the documents he brought and picking one out for him, turning it around for Gintoki to look at. "Here. This is what I was doing minutes before we ran into each other that day by the dumpster."

Gintoki reads through, paying attention to Hijikata's notes he'd made talking to Miyake Kazuo's wife, Toriko. There were various things that caught his eye, the lack of communication to Toriko about when and where Yushiro was going and coming to every week, obviously the strange men she claimed he began to hang around, topped off by the multiple nights of disappearance. However, the note that really drew to him was the last one, one Hijikata had made countless little scribbles out to the side but had yet to come across any ends to.

Stay clear of men with tattoos on their necks.

Gintoki narrowed his eyes at the writing, paper feeling heavier in his hand. Memories of heartache and loss flooded back, accompanied by the searing pain of becoming reborn, becoming a different man. Gintoki shakes his head, knocking away the ghosts of his past. Hijikata is watching him carefully, a pinch in his brows that was torn between concern and confusion.

He couldn't say for certain if his experiences were in line with what Yushiro was warning Toriko of, but he could say that if he was correct with his assumptions, Edo was going to be in a whirlwind of shit he wasn't sure it could get out of. Vampire politics was a tight, unbreaking rope that he chose to stay as far away from as possible.

Gintoki takes a deep breath, one that wasn't for theatrics, the ghost of a mannerism left over from a previous life. "I have… thoughts." He begins, unsure of how to continue. He pushes the paper back towards Hijikata, deciding that it would be safer for both him and Hijikata if he didn't speak on them at all, given the influence of the people in question. "Not here though."

Hijikata nods, understanding. He begins to shuffle through the papers again, pulling out last night's transcripts, which had been scribbled all over in an attempt to make some order to the nonsensical speech of the sedated Nishio. Gintoki reads over this as well, being sure to take it in the new light that he now was seeing through. Hijikata had summed it up well, (thankfully, as Gintoki had not been paying the best attention thanks to Sougo) and many of the notes had his name in them. Of course, for reasons unbeknownst to Hijikata, Nishio was now infatuated with Gintoki and much of what was about him was trying to figure out why Nishio had such an affinity for him. He knew Hijikata was going to ask him about that later too, but he definitely wasn't going to initiate the conversation so he skipped over them, instead looking for things to back up his previous theory.

"These men, snake, they don't like you… but they know you very well. They told me to tell you this, they knew that I would come into contact with you… After all I'm just another pawn in their immortal, petty fuckin' game."

Gintoki reads, Hijikata's notes scribbled out vast to the side. Men who know Gintoki very well, bad terms, (does Gintoki know them well? Does he know why they don't like him?) The same men who were calling the shots for Nishio and Fukuda, the men with power. Links to… Hijikata scrawled off, the sentence unfinished, left to be touched on later. The note under it spoke about Fukuda and how he had been on the Shinsengumi radar a couple times but they had never been able to secure anything on him. Finding Fukuda was going to be the key in this whole deal, that was Gintoki's intuition and if he was anything to go off of, then that was Hijikata's intuition as well. Honestly speaking, he hated how similar they were, but that was beside the point, a terrible thought for another time.

Gintoki sets down the paper quietly and takes a sip of his drink. He knows he's going to have to bite the bullet, he's going to have to get Katsura's opinion. Katsura, much to his own disagreement, was more involved in the vampire politics and workings than he was― and if there's anyone he can count on to confirm his suspicions on the "powerful and influential" men, it would be another person who lived through it with him. Katsura also might know something about Fukuda and Nishio, which he doubted, but still would ask anyway.

The perm readjusts himself in his chair, hunger creeping up on him like a bad omen. He ignores it, like he always does, handing Hijikata back the transcript. "I have thoughts again, but some I need to get a second opinion on before I say them."

"I could maybe help." He replies, the "if this is the right place to talk about it" heavily implied.

Gintoki shakes his head lightly, "No, not you." He pauses, "I have someone who knows more than what I know, so if I come up to them with my theory they might be able to tell me more. We could get a better lead."

Hijikata nods, rolling his head to relieve some of it's tension. "Yeah, okay. That sounds go-"

Before Hijikata could finish the sentence, he's interrupted by a familiar female laugh as the woman came through the door. Gintoki looks up from the table, Nene making her way towards them quickly, hips thrown from side to side as she walked. The guy behind her looks visibly confused as he was left in the dust, the silver haired perm now unwillingly taking his dimly lit spotlight.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" She purrs, the words rolling off of her lips, covered by the same glossy red lipstick as the last time he'd seen her. "This isn't your usual stomping grounds..." She gives Hijikata a long look up and down, eyes narrowing as they observed. Hijikata glares back, obviously pissed off at the unwelcome guest and he closes the folder before she can look at it. "And this isn't your usual toy." She finishes, leaning over the table, long manicured nails clicking against the wood.

"Nene…" Gintoki grumbles, leaning back so she wasn't in his face. He's about to excuse himself with her when she speaks, cutting him off before he could say a word.

"How was he?" She asks insistently, smirk turned up on her jealous lips.

"Who-"

"Oh, you know who. Akito, our little friend? Remember now? Did he suit your... needs?" She purrs, whispering the last word, Hijikata's eyes immediately landing on Gintoki after that statement. "You know, after you two left me. Not even a goodbye! So rude… Tell me, Gin-san, did he pay you, or did you pay him?"

Gintoki has to fight every nerve in his body not to roll his eyes and make a scene. He decides quickly that she'll only go away if she gets her answers and so he glares, wrapping a hand around his glass and taking a sip. "There was no money."

"Oh, mutual pleasure I see." She leans in, whispering in Gintoki's ear. "How much? And then if I'm better than him than I get to keep my money. Deal? You know I'm better than the guy you have now, at least."

Gintoki sighs, irritated and still hungry, which wasn't helping to quell his emotions in the moment. "You're not paying me anything because this isn't a business deal, so you can go back to that puppy with his tail between his legs you walked in with." He snaps, voice low and demanding as he motioned with his head towards the guy practically cowering in the doorway.

She laughs, unperturbed by the serious turn of Gintoki's nature. "You seem tired, I'll let you have a few drinks and then I'll be back." She winks, turning around and ordering both Gintoki and Hijikata another drink. "This one's on me, again."

Gintoki runs a hand through his hair, catching on a few tangles. Hijikata finishes his drink, the empty glass clinking against the table. "Yikes." He says and Gintoki couldn't agree more. Nene was a whirlwind of a woman and in the two meger times they'd talked, he'd say that she had managed to surprise him in almost every moment of their conversation.

"Tell me about it."

"I probably shouldn't ask too many questions."

"One question is too many when it comes to her."

"One question is too many when it comes to you, too." Hijikata retorts with a snort.

"Pfft, Gin-san is an honorable and respectable man who works hard for his money." He says and Hijikata rolls his eyes, the side of his mouth turning up like he was about to laugh.

"Not sure honorable and respectable are the words I would use." Gintoki chuckles at the remark, watching Hijikata pull out his phone. He texts someone quickly and then picks up his jacket, holding it in the crook of his arm. "Ah, I've got to go, I'm needed back at the barracks. Tell me when you've talked to your consultant, we'll meet up somewhere. Drinks again?"

"Alcohol is always nice." Gintoki says as he finishes his own. Hijikata leaves with the folder, dropping off money for their tab to the owner. Not a moment later, the waitress comes by, confused as to what to do with the spare glass. "Leave it, I'll drink it." He says, picking up the one meant for himself after she leaves and brings it up to his lips. Nene swoops into the other booth seat, which he knew she would do, however he wasn't expecting her to slyly steal the glass from his hand, consequently spilling a couple drops of the liquid onto the crotch of his pants.

He glances down at it, then back at her, and she theatrically makes a show of turning the glass so she was drinking from where he was. "Whoops," She whispers, eyes not leaving Gintoki's. She's pushing his buttons and she knows she is, they've talked long enough for Gintoki to know that Nene isn't all looks. He's not going to stop her either, because he's starving and she's begging him to leave the bar with her, too easy of a catch to pass down. "Your boy-toy leave you?"

"He's not my boy-toy," Gintoki begins, endorsing her by taking the glass out of her hand when she goes to drink. "It was business, nothing more."

She smirks, chuckling appreciatively at Gintoki's actions. "Don't lie to me, Gintoki. I see that way you look at him." Gintoki ignores her, eyes watching people roam outside the window. Nene continues, disappointed in the lack of reply, "It's hungry― one could say primal, even. You have something for a man in uniform? Is it the opposite ends of the spectrum that you like? The thought you might get caught?"

"Pfft, I don't have anything for him." Gintoki retorts, watching her finish the glass. "He's just part of the means to an end, that's all."

She shrugs her shoulders, nail tracing the ring of the glass gently. "Whatever you say."

Gintoki looks around, the man that Nene walked in with talking awkwardly to the older man next to him. "So, are you just going to leave him?" He motions his head towards the man and Nene giggles, seemingly amused at Gintoki's curiosity.

Glancing over at him, she watches his conversation. "He'll be okay, won't be the last time he sees me." She pauses, her devious eyes once more finding his own. "Besides, you're much more fun."

Gintoki doesn't say anything, already knowing that won't be the case tonight and instead orders her another glass to accompany the already full one in front of her. They talk for a bit longer, the perm only able to hold out the beast's insistent calling for so long. He knows Nene won't mind either, so after she gets done with her second glass he pulls out his wallet, getting ready to leave. She'd been putting back drinks and he could tell she was at the cusp of her limit, caught somewhere between being drunk and coherent, which was right where he needed her. Gintoki quickly pays, covering her tab as well, and he makes a joke about how they were equal now.

They talk and walk, Nene stumbling step by step with him, following mindlessly until there was no longer any hotels in front of them. Nene laughs about all sorts of things, face glowing in the warm streetlights. There's no doubting it, she was a beautiful woman with a rather... unique personality. He hoped that she would find someone to treat her right later in life, once she got through having her fun in her young adult years.

He leads her to the docks, the waves just as gentle as his voice as he soothed her worried, un-probing questions. There's no one around, the ocean's breeze blowing her long hair all around her face. He chuckles as she fixes it, his hands tenderly resting on her hips. She's much quieter than usual, that mask that she had projected the each time they drank together crumbling quickly away as her anxiety grew. She was a soft and scared girl at heart and Gintoki feels bad that she had to be his choice tonight. But then again, he always felt bad. No one deserved to bear the weight of his curse other than him, but he had his priorities and the kids and Otose always came first. When they were gone, then he could focus on ending his own mess of a life.

She looks up at him with stars in her worried eyes and he tucks the single loose strand of her hair behind her ear, pushing her lightly against the wall of an abandoned fish cannery. The back of her head hits the bricks, eyes not straying from his own; he can see the fight in them to convince herself to trust him.

He picks her up, her legs wrapping around him, the moon silhouetting his face in darkness. There's a finger that runs down her jaw, a tender, light touch. Their lips meet, her eyes hesitantly fluttering closed, the taste of raspberry sake on her tongue. The ocean's cool breeze blows again, the kiss soft compared to the grip he has on her thigh― except it's not really his grip. Their mouths break, her glossy red lipstick smudged on his lip. He watches her bring her hand up to wipe it off but the last thing he sees is the realization hit her face, her body tensing in defense against the monster before her.

She struggles to break free, unwrapping her legs and trying to tug away. Her eyes are frozen onto his own, the beast's wicked and bright gaze peering back, his body unmoving against her pushes. A sharp, long black nail digs into her thigh drawing blood, her breath getting quickly trapped in her lungs when she goes to scream― stopped by the bruising, unyielding, iron hold around her neck. There isn't time for the blood to rise beneath her skin however, as his teeth latch onto where his fingers and thumb connect around her throat.

It was like a switch went off, white to black in a second; a lust like never before consuming him in darkness, driven only by the primal instinct to drink until there was no return. He was going to kill her.

The void in him wants to escape, long grown tired of his constant teasing. His constant teasing. It wants release, relief― like any good sin.

It has it right in it's hands too, a victim and the pawn― so willing to give into the sweet snare the beast had laid out for him. Just a few more moments and he would be reborn again, a killer carrying a different type of blood on his hands, no longer blood from hard fought battles in the war, no longer blood from victory. No, this blood was different, heavier, blood that signified he had lost.

Somewhere in the back of his mind he's counting the seconds, counting her heartbeats, she doesn't have many left. He, however, was relishing in it, scratching an itch fifteen years in the making.

The itch never fully leaves though because as if a truck hits him, an unknown force launches him into a nearby steel shipping container, the metal denting with the curve of his back, the sound echoing through the docks. His eyes stutter open, the unexpected twist allowing him to recover enough of himself from the depths of desire to see what had hit him.

Katsura was there, smoke trail slowly dissipating behind him as Sakamoto rounded the corner of the cannery, leaning down to tend to Gintoki's victim, glasses tucked away in his jacket's pocket. Zura stands and doesn't move further, eyes darkened and disappointed as they stared mercilessly at him. Sakamoto whispers something to him and Katsura leans down too, blocking Gintoki's vision from what they were doing over her body. Everything is a blur, his vision, his hearing, nothing is clear. It's like everything had a gray film over it, prohibiting him from doing anything other than keeping himself in control. It's getting harder, he's teetering between consciousness, on the edge of losing himself again and the thick scent of blood is only furthering that descent.

He's afraid, terrified to hurt one of them so he just sits there, keeping his muscles as tightly locked as he could, doing everything in his limited power to avoid slipping up and furthering his madness. He stays like this for a long time, sitting, his eyes slowly dimming in the moonlight as he came down off of the terrible high.

There's a constant, stinging ring in his head which is only interrupted when Katsura finally walks over to him after God knows how long, leaning down and evaluating his sorry state. Zura looks at his long nails, blood pushed into the side of one nail bed, packed into the ridges of his fingers. He's got blood on his mouth too, he knows because he'd felt it he'd been rammed earlier, sharp teeth tearing soft skin like paper.

Katsura sits down in front of him, legs crossed, and all Gintoki can do is look at him. "I saved her." He doesn't say anything, instead tossing his head back against the metal container as Katsura continued. "She'll wake up eventually with a nasty headache but she definitely won't remember anything that happened tonight, because she was hardly alive to witness it." He pauses, and Gintoki knows what he's going to say before the words ever leave his mouth.

"You're lucky it wasn't one of the kids."

The moon is mockingly bright above him and he watches the clouds roll over it, draping Edo in a temporary darkness. "I can't go back." He mumbles, Zura's eyes cast up to the clouds as well. "I can't face them."

He feels Katsura's eyes fall back down on him, and they weight they carry with their gaze. "You can. Just not right now, for their safety."

Gintoki chuckles at the last line; oh, the irony. If only Katsura knew of his conversation with Otose just hours ago, he'd be laughing too. "They'll hate me more if I don't come home tonight." He whispers to no one in particular, Sakamoto having walked just a couple of steps shy of Katsura, warned not to come any closer by a pale arm thrown out to the side. "But who am I kidding? They don't like me anyway," He begins, feeling Katsura's eye twitch with the words. "Everything that comes out of my mouth is just another lie… a waste of their time."

"Gintoki, you do what you have to to keep them safe and that's all that matters."

"Zura, you said it yourself; you know I'm not in control."

"You weren't, but you fought back." Katsura pauses, lips pressing together, slightly hollowing his cheeks. "I wish I could say I did the same. However we're not all as strong."

"Strong? Is that a joke? I killed her. I was just lucky enough that you were here."

Katsura stands up, done with the conversation, brushing off his yukata and quickly offering Gintoki a slender hand. Gintoki takes it, his head still spinning too much for him to effectively get up by himself. Sakamoto checks up on Nene once more wordlessly, her skin patching itself up quickly thanks to Zura. Her heart beat is steady and he's right, she'll wake up with a hell of a headache but she'll walk away from it fine, if not a bit sick.

There's a long gash slowly weaving itself together where he'd ripped her skin, following her neck and just a couple inches shy of her shoulder. It makes his stomach turn, just the thoughts. The beast however is satisfied, content for the time being. Gintoki knows it will be back though, it always came back. For now, he's feeling relatively full for the first time since he was turned and even if he doesn't agree with it, he understands why his kind kills.

Katsura keeps himself in between him and Sakamoto, Gintoki grateful for the extra precaution. Though Katsura had never explicitly told him before that he had killed with the curse, Gintoki had always known. Everytime Takasugi got mentioned in a conversation between them Katsura would get this distant look in his eyes, one that Gintoki knew very well from their days in the war, before they learned how to seem void of any emotion. It was guilt, deeply rooted guilt. The same guilt that caused Zura to snap at his louder, permed counterpart when he'd asked to be turned at the bar. The same guilt that lead him to keep warning Gintoki when he got too close to the edge. The same guilt that caused him to come to the Nene's rescue just moments earlier. Zura knew what it was like― the itch, because the man was too kind hearted for his own good.

Not like Gintoki, who immediately used humans who showed him even the least bit of trust for his own selfish needs. Sex, money, food, there was countless nameless faces he'd left in the night after he'd gotten what he wanted from them. He knew what it was like, what being human felt like, he hadn't forgotten and he never would be able to. Vampirism was like being trapped in a lucid dream, looking back on your old life and wanting it's now miniscule seeming struggles. He wanted his feet to hurt after walking on them too much, for his doctor to tell him that he was eating too much sugar, to be scared of the dentist and ghosts. He wanted to not have to worry about relocating somewhere else later in life, and to die before his kids do.

Katsura leads them somewhere, Gintoki following a few steps back as he thought. He's got blood on the inside of his sleeve, beginning to stain the blue swirls on his yukata. Slowly, the streets start to look familiar and it's not too long before he figures out where he's being led to. He can hear their laughs from a couple blocks down, Sadaharu barking at whatever was happening.

The dojo slowly comes into view, Sakamoto disappearing off to the side somewhere to let Katsura and Gintoki be alone. He can hear the kids and Otae laughing about something, their endless banters hitting too close to home, making the after taste of blood on his tongue weigh heavy. Katsura turns, looking directly into Gintoki's eyes.

"This is what you have to protect." He starts, voice low and resolute. "This is what's important. It's not the curse or blood. The people you have around you are not there just because they feel bad about your circumstances, they're around you because they want to be there." He pauses, crossing his arms, letting his words sink in. "You need to take care of yourself so you can ensure they can keep laughing and living."

Gintoki knows he does and for the first time in forever, that feat doesn't seem impossible to attain. His stomach isn't rumbling with the longings of the beast and though the blood on his sleeve and finger smells tempting, it's not driving him mad like a certain soaked collarbone did. He can still do this.

"You want them to eventually know about you, right? It starts here, with your change― then you won't need to worry about hiding so much from them." Gintoki slumps back against the wall, Kagura yelling loudly at the board game they were playing.

Sadaharu starts barking in their direction, everyone's voice lowering. Shinpachi slides open the door and his voice is a little more hoarse than usual, Gintoki silently running through the options of what could have gotten it there. The boy dismisses the dog who was, to them, only barking at the garden wall and tells him to come back inside, Sadaharu complying only after a moment of staring at seemingly nothing. Shinpachi shuts the door, the game resuming quickly after.

For the third time that night, Gintoki looks up to the moon for answers he already knows.


	11. Chapter Eleven

He's at the doorway, he has been all night long, shoes still on, bloodied yukata thrown into the trash bin outside. He's going to sit here until the kids get home, staring at the wall across from him.

The morning takes every second in the night to come, drawn out to it's highest degree but in reality, not drawn out at all. It's his mind that takes it all as painfully slow, another way to slap him into sense about what he had done just hours prior, what Katsura had showed him.

In a way, he's grateful. If he was Katsura last night, looking at what Gintoki had done, the wound, the blood, the animal succumbed to it's natural instincts, he would have killed Gintoki. However, Katsura didn't, showing him what there was to live for instead of what there was to take away. Katsura was always better at that, at saving life. Maybe that's why Gintoki was as haunted as he was.

The sunlight begins to peak out through the small crack in the door and as time goes by he watches it grow, centimeter by centimeter, until it was just moments away from his leg. He lets it do as it wishes, climbing up his pants and resting on his thigh, the thin strip of light cradling his skin through the fabric like the sound of nails on a chalkboard. It's irritating, the type of irritating that makes your face scrunch and your toes curl, pinching the bottom of your feet till there's a small cramp. Even so, he keeps his legs stretched outward, letting the warmth fall into his bones.

Once more, he doesn't know how much time passes, but eventually, he's awakened from his thoughts by the sound of footsteps heading up the stairs. He lets them come, dog claws lightly and familiarly grating against the wood. He shifts only from the floor to the small step that leads into the living room, body meagerly protesting the movements, simply a ghost of the muscles once alive.

Shinpachi is the one to open the door, carrying Kagura's sleepover bag for her on his right shoulder. He looks down at Gintoki with a pitiful quiver in his lips, the type of disappointed and hurt stare that a mother would make when she found out her child had been going behind her back. Kagura is right behind him, a much different look to her, and for a second, he thinks that she knows. They're both coming off of a sickness, he can smell it on them, and it just makes him more upset with himself that he wasn't there to take care of them through it.

Shinpachi drops the bag out of the way, resting on his knees to be eye level with Gintoki. Kagura does the same, yet not as formally, falling to the side of Shinpachi on her butt, legs crossed as she let him deal with the situation at hand.

He knows Shinpachi is waiting on Gintoki to say something, waiting on him to explain himself and confirm all of his bad choices with an apology, like Shinpachi would do if he messed up. However, he's not Shinpachi, he's never been good with his words, never talked his way through his feelings or actions, not in his past life and not in this one. So he does as he only knows how to do, communicate with actions, because that's what had gotten them to this point in the very beginning. Swiftly, he grabs up Shinpachi by the collar of his keikogi and pulls their faces close. There's a falter in Shinpachi's convicted demeanor during the action and Gintoki knows it's fear, he knows Shinpachi respects his strength because his heartbeat begins to race, fueled by adrenaline.

Gintoki looks at him for a moment and Shinpachi stares resolutely back, unknowing and uneasy of what was going to happen next, then, all at once, Gintoki is hugging him. It's a bit awkward at best and unnatural in position, but Shinpachi releases the fists clenching his clothes nonetheless, arms falling around Gintoki's neck and squeezing like he had been waiting for this for years. Shinpachi's heart is racing, emotions welling up in his chest as his glasses fell from his face onto the ground beside them. Gintoki knows he's crying long before Shinpachi knows it himself, allowing his ingrained facade of fearlessness to break as he became the kid that he was. Gintoki extends an arm out to Kagura to join them and she scoots in, wapping one arm around each of them, head pressed against Gintoki's.

They stay like this for a while, Shinpachi crying into his shoulder while Gintoki listened to both of their hearts. His hands are caressing both their heads, rubbing soft circles in their hair, the only way he knows how to fix this rift between them without threatening their safety more than he already has.

He doesn't say anything, he lets them decide when they want the moment to end, because he knows it doesn't come as often as it should. He needs to love them more outwardly, needs to protect them with more of himself instead of less, just as Katsura had said last night. He has the power to be near to them and keep them safe, as long as he trusts himself that he can. He understands all of this now.

Eventually, Shinpachi pulls back, cheeks red and eyes puffy from crying. He sniffs, snot caught in his nose still runny as he felt for his glasses on the floor and Gintoki smiles in the place of a chuckle, because he loves this kid so much that anything he does makes him happy. Kagura is no exception either, because her hair pins are lop-sided and her nose is red from rubbing against Gintoki's shoulder as she tried and failed not to cry. Fuck, he's so proud of them.

He gets up, lets them collect themselves as he heads into the bathroom to find some general cold and flu medicine from the cabinet.

Shinpachi eventually gets his glasses on, eyes still blurry as he watched Gintoki get the medicine through the gape of the door. He's looking, the mirror peering back at him, albeit unseeing. The teen tilts his head trying to piece it together loosely, still confused and flustered from before and he rubs his eyes for clarity, but Gintoki is in front of him before he has time to look again. He sets the bottle of red medicine down in front of them, leaving to grab a spoon and some water from the kitchen.

Kagura is looking at him confused because she knows as well as he does that they hadn't spoken a word to Gintoki about them having a cold, nor a word in general, but Shinpachi shrugs it off, chalking it up to the fact that he might have merely looked sick.

Gintoki returns from the kitchen, pouring the medicine into the spoon and giving them two spoonfuls each, their age's recommended dosage. Their noses scrunch with each swallow and it leaves a bitter, awful taste in their mouths but that's what the water was there for. Although he didn't know what it was like himself, Kagura had complained multiple times about having to take this medicine for that exact reason, so the least he could do to make up for not caring for them earlier was give them a reprieve from terrible fake cherry.

He moves them both into the living room, turning on their favorite game show, bringing out all the extra blankets and pillows in the house and tossing them onto the table. They bundle up, Gintoki scraping some food together to make them something he thinks will help them feel better. He's not the best cook, he'd lost a lot of his skills after he no longer needed them, but he wasn't exactly helpless either. He joins them the moment he's done, spreading the biggest blanket over all of them so he could keep his feet covered underneath while still propping them on the table. There's also no use for things such as blankets, but soft fabric felt good on all skin, undead or not.

They spend the rest of the day watching TV together and come nightfall, both the kids are fast asleep. Kagura's got her feet on Gintoki's lap, not that he minded, though, of course she didn't get them there without their normal bickering, and Shinpachi is lounging across the slew of pillows Kagura gave him when she got a hot flash. The room is dark, the television's light flashing against his pale face but playing low so it won't wake them up. He's not watching it anymore, his mind is just wandering, going from one place to the next but always circling around to one conversation he had many nights ago, drunk off his mind with Katsura and Sakamoto.

"Coexisting, huh?" He says to no one in particular, words falling off his lips easier than they probably should as he looked at the two sleepy faces next to him. Humans and kindred― though it was a bit illogical, maybe it was proof enough.

"Vice-Commander!" A scream sounds, the owner's voice breaking with agony as it was muddled through the night's heavy fog. Hijikata darts away from the body that he had just slain, leaving the pockets for one of his other subordinates to go through later. His sword is drawn, still dripping blood and ready by his hip as he hastily sprinted find the source of the noise. It was one of his men, he knew the voice, knew the man's face well.

"Tanshiro!" Hijikata calls out into the night, the breeze blowing in from the sea. The moon is full above him but he still can't see a damn thing, the fog is too thick, too muting of the sounds of night and the wind isn't helping either. Hijikata calls the name again and when there's no reply for the second time, he knows the man is dead.

He curses under his breath, eyes scanning the rooftops and along every dark corner of the alleyways. It's silent― the type of silent where evil things lurk, preying on their desired victims. His footsteps are too loud and he knows that, unable to help it even if it makes his brow sweat with more apprehension than it already is.

He's lost at least two men tonight on what was supposed to be an easy kill and he doesn't know about the last one yet, he could be gone too. That's more families to contact in the morning and even though he'll never admit it, he wishes he would've let their target live another night. It was foolish on his part to run after the man when he saw him on patrol, being as undermatched as they were. He can't think about that right now though, can't allow those thoughts to poison his inevitable fight.

His hands are shaking of their own will, teeth bared together in the escalating tension of the moment. He's being watched, he feels it now, glowing eyes lingering, burning across his skin, causing the hair on his arm to stand up. What a fucking coward, he thinks to himself, watching the shadows jump around in front of him, his mind playing horrible tricks on him.

"Come out! Face me!" Hijikata yells into the fog, twisting and turning above him. The magic of kindred― seclusion, silence, trickery, manipulation. Hijikata knew it well, knew the effects of kindred in their natural territory, what all they could do to the space around them. It's what made them so dangerous in the beginning, not necessarily the fact that they preyed upon humans but more so their given strength, that was the real justification for their slaughter.

The fog is twisting, twirling, then all at once, there's light footsteps racing behind him and Hijikata ducks and rolls to the side, away from his assailant. The kindred turns to look at him on the ground, blood tucked into the corners of his mouth, no doubt from Tanshiro. Hijikata curses once more and his heart can't help but thud louder with nestled, fiery rage.

The vampire lunges at him again, nails sharp and bared, eyes wide with the thrill of it all. Hijikata wants so desperately to cut the smirk off the vampire's pompous face, but the kindred is not letting up with his barrage of attacks, not letting Hijikata get a breath. It's definitely not the easiest battle, those are the kindred who have just been turned and are mid-blood thirst craving. It's always easier to kill something before it knows its own capabilities, that's why the Shinsengumi takes so many measures to ensure any new ones are found soon after they're turned.

The man is laughing in Hijikata's face, body blinking partially to ensure that Hijikata's blade missed him. Although he can't attack while blinking, he knows as good as Hijikata does that a missed moment to attack is better than getting hit, because all Shinsengumi blades are coated with tranquilizing fluid. That's what gives vampire hunters the leg up, they just have to land one hit and the fight is as good as theirs, a swift cut to the neck after that would prevent the thing from ever getting up again. It's whether or not you're able to make that one hit, that's what makes or breaks the battle.

The kindred's hand flies toward his head, the speed barely giving him time to get his blade up to block it. The sword snaps in half under the force and if not for the split second of emotion that falls across the vampire's face, Hijikata would have never known that he had cut him. It's mere luck, but he abandons the katana, drawing a small dagger from the inside of his jacket the moment he got the chance. The vampire still doesn't know that he knows he's been cut and Hijikata is going to ride that out for as long as he can, which is hopefully, to the end. Typically when cut, kindred try to flee, knowing that the tides of battle have switched against their favor, but this one is either trying to play it off or is simply stupid, the ladder he highly doubted with the skill of his movements. This is an older kindred who has killed many innocents, he can tell by his strength, which makes it all the more preferable to get rid of him now.

Hijikata blocks a kick to his head with his forearms, grabbing the foot of the man before he can move it away. He gets slung against the wall beside them in return, head smacking the bricks, blood bubbling up in the back of his throat, making it hard to breathe. There's a high-pitched ringing in his ears but he has no time to think about it because that aggravating smirk is back in full force, the blood of his fallen subordinate shining under the moonlight, not yet dried. He cries out, kicking the man's other foot out from under him, the two of them falling to the ground. Hijikata's dagger is smacked from his hand, resulting in yet another cut, one that doesn't heal back. The vampire goes to make an escape but Hijikata is quicker due to the kindred's inability to blink away from his grip.

He grasps for the nearest weapon, the upper half of his broken sword, pushing down on the blade with his hands until it had sliced cleanly through the neck of the kindred. The wound bubbles and spits blood, the detached head teetering side to side gently as the creature died. Hijikata slumps back onto the ground, hands shaking and bloody from being cut open with the broken katana. His whole body is trembling, the high of the fight coming down like a ton of bricks, making it even harder to breathe with the blood caught up in his throat. He coughs it up, watching it mix with the dampness of the ground. Shit― he hurts all over. The vampire had been able to land more than a few solid hits on him and he was already beginning to feel it as the adrenaline began to run out.

He looks over to the body lying before his feet and in a spur of emotion, kicks it. "Oi, bastard." He says to the man, lighting up a crumbled and bloody cigarette. "Don't even think 'bout getting up, I'll kill you again before you have the time to bust me up like this." Hijikata sighs into the silence, watching the blank eyes of the unseeing dead stare at the wall beside them.

Pulling out his phone, he flips it open to a newly cracked screen, most likely from when he hit the wall earlier, and dials a number to the best of his ability, blood seeping into the sides of the keys.

"Hijikata-san? At this hour? What a pleasant surprise. Shouldn't you be getting your beauty sleep?" The irritating voice on the other end purrs, making Hijikata bite his cigarette between his teeth.

"Sougo, quit fucking around, I need the cleanup crew. I've got three dead Shinsengumi and two dead kindred."

"Ooh, Hijikata-san that's quite the mess you have there. I'll get them on their way once you text me your location."

"I can't―" He begins to protest, but the line is already silent on the other side. "Fuck! That brat-!"

He's not sure what takes longer, him typing out the address or the cleanup crew arriving, but he's thankful when they get there nonetheless. By that time, he had found the cooling body of Tanshiro, as well as his other two subordinates, who were each dead, pale hands carrying the other's eyeballs. It was a sickening sight, one that made his blood boil, reminding him why exactly he hunted every night.

In truth, Hijikata doesn't know how many kindreds he's killed. Hundreds, he's sure of that much. He stopped keeping track years ago, but it doesn't matter either way. He'll keep killing, keep spilling blood until every last one of them is dead, for Mitsuba.

"That was a close one, Hijikata-sama…" Dr. Nishimoto scolds, wrapping up Hijikata's fingers one by one. "You almost lost both your pinkies, that wouldn't have been good for any normal man, but for a swordsman? Downright devastating. You need to be more careful." Hijikata sighs, smoke falling out of his lips. The doctor frowns, grabbing the cigarette away from him and snuffing it out haphazardly on the floor. "And stop smoking! You'll be dead before you're thirty at this rate! I swear, the mayonnaise is one thing, but your lungs are probably black as soot!"

Hijikata doesn't say anything, mourning his cigarette as he watched the Shinsengumi's doctor put away his supplies back into their designated cabinets. "Your lungs aren't the only thing black; you're bruised all over. However, remarkably, no broken ribs from hitting that wall. I suppose now you can be thankful for all the other times you broke them, they're hard as a rock."

"Thanks, Doc." Hijikata mutters out, observing his wrapped fingers. They look like little mummies, he thinks, the prospect making him huff a breath out of his nose in amusement.

"Keep in mind what I said about that concussion. It's not severe, though that doesn't mean you shouldn't take it seriously. I know hell could freeze over and it still wouldn't stop you from working but at least try to take it easy, will you?" There's a friendly pat on his shoulder after that sentence and it takes everything for Hijikata not to snarkily rebuke against it.

"I'll try." It's a lie and they both know it, but the doctor lets it go nonetheless.

"Alright, take care of yourself, Hijikata-sama."

He slides off the tall chair in the center of the room, feet hitting the ground hard, making his brain seem to bounce in his head. It hurts like shit, there's no way around that, but he ignores it like he always does, downing two more pain pills when he gets to his room. It's almost five in the morning, a couple hours after he had killed the kindred and he slumps into his futon with heavy breath, body protesting every little movement.

He doesn't know how he's going to make himself look presentable when tomorrow comes, but he needs to visit families and deliver keepsakes. He rolls over, deciding the matter was for tomorrow to deal with and within a couple of minutes, he's asleep.

The afternoon sun is ruthless, his head pounding in defiance of Hijikata insisting they be outside. He's already visited two of the families so far and he can safely say it never got easier, still disheartening his spirit for the rest of the day. Losing subordinates under you was one thing for the unit as a whole, but these were men he knew, men that he patrolled with. Once more, he wishes he would have never made the command to run after the target, but how could he have known that there were two kindred?

He sighs, checking his notes once more for the address. He'd done that about four times already, brain swamped in a fog that he couldn't quite focus through. It had taken him double the average time to get ready when he woke up, and a good portion of that time was merely gelling his hair back so he didn't look so fucked up.

The house is a bit of a walk, right outside of the Kabukicho gates. He lets his feet carry him there, trying to keep his face from showing that he was in pain. After all, the last thing he needed was to get taken out by a kindred who saw the golden opportunity it was. By the time he arrives, the sun was beginning it's descent behind the rooftops, which he was grateful for. It made the experience a whole lot easier when his head wasn't swarming.

The house has a single lantern lit outside, flower pots adorning the floor by the front door. He knocks, a feeble gray haired woman answering and he bows respectfully, announcing that he was the vice-commander from the Shinsengumi. He asks if he can come inside, the lady moving to the side to let him in. He takes off his shoes, feeling better now that he was out of the light entirely and waits for her to sit down on her zabuton cushion before following.

There's a spare cushion to the side of her on the other side of the chabudai table and she explains that her husband was still out manning his ramen stand, and would be until nightfall. He nods in reply, pulling out a briefcase and opening it, twisting it around to face the mother of his fallen subordinate.

Hijikata watches her look at the case, growing worry in her graying eyes, and he lowers his voice, speaking softly. "It's with my heavy heart that I regret to inform you that your son, Uyeda Mabuchi, has been killed." She begins sobbing before he finishes the sentence, hands cupping her face as her body trembled with the news. Hijikata doesn't know what to say after that, he never does, so instead he backs up, bowing until his forehead was touching the ground.

"I'm sorry. I lost all of them last night due to my own carelessness and lack of strength." He pauses, listening to her cries slowly grow more uncontrollable. "I wish I could go back, no parent should ever have to bury their child."

She weeps, pulling the briefcase close and looking through her son's belongings. Hijikata takes this as his time to leave, standing up and apologizing once more, notifying her that the funeral information was all in the case and to call them when they were ready to proceed. He slips on his shoes at the door, closing it softly behind him.

No, it wasn't easy at all.

Hijikata steps away from the building and into the crowd, the sun still not fully down. He isn't outside for thirty seconds until another voice calls out his name. He looks around, it calls again, and then he sees it. That blinding silver perm.

Gintoki makes his way over to Hijikata, grocery bags in the crook of his arm, accompanied by the two kids he took care of. The girls hair is blinding too, only in this light though, where it seemed to reflect every ounce of sunlight straight into his eyes.

"What are you doing over here? Nice suit by the way." Gintoki comments, light grin across his lips.

"Work." Hijikata replies back, short and to the point. His head hurts too much for him to say thank you to the compliment, especially not under the circumstances which he had to put it on today.

"I see," Gintoki hums, undoubtedly picking up on Hijikata's bad temperment. "Well if you're here for work follow us to the apartment, we can talk about what we missed the night before last."

Hijikata wants to reject it, he really does, he doesn't think he'll even be able to focus that well on paying attention but the cop in him takes over, nodding in agreeance. He follows them to their apartment, the three of them bickering over literally nothing until they say goodbye to the boy, Shinpachi, somewhere along the way. Then, Gintoki and Kagura go back to their bickering. It's friendly and on any other day he wouldn't have minded that much, but today he's short on both nicotine and brain power, so he minds just a little.

Frazzled, they eventually make it to the apartment, the Yorozuya Gin-chan sign hanging ominously above his head. Gintoki tells Kagura to get her clothes and shower, and offers him a drink.

"No, I really shouldn't." He says, stuttering mid-sentence. Gintoki gives him a look, instead bringing out a glass of water and setting it down on the table in front of him. The perm takes off his yukata, tossing it along the back of his desk chair, sitting down on the adjacent couch.

"You're pretty fucked up, huh?" Gintoki says, watching Kagura close the door to the bathroom. Apparently, this isn't something he wants her to hear.

"Concussion and some cut fingers. It's nothing much."

Gintoki slumps back with a 'hmpf'. "How'd you get those?"

"A kindred, what do you think?" He snorts.

"Oh, I see. Must've been pretty old for you to get beat up like you did."

"I lost three men last night to one while I was dealing with another, bastard." He bites, not in the mood.

Gintoki holds a hand up defensively, joking grin as he tried to cool Hijikata down. "My bad, vice-commander. I didn't know."

Hijikata grunts, dismissive. "Let's just get this over with, I can't be walking home too late or I'll be killed if anyone recognizes me in this state."

"Fair." Gintoki says, gently ruffling his perm. His voice lowers, something changing below it all― though Hijikata isn't quite sure what it is. "There's not much to say but "vampire politics". If it's what I think it is then Yushiro's wife is referring to the Tenshouin Naraku, a band of assassins headed by a man named Oboro that work under the Tendoshu, the controllers of the government of Edo and surrounding planets."

Once more, Gintoki is being careful with his words. Hijikata just pulls out a piece of paper from his suit pocket, writing down what Gintoki said as he talked.

He continues, watching Hijikata write notes down. "Don't say their name in public, ever. There's eyes and ears everywhere. If it was found out that the vice-commander of the Shinsengumi was on the hunt for the Naraku, you'd be dead by daylight." Gintoki pauses, sighing, head falling back to look at the ceiling while he talked. "They're all old, the Tendoshu― hundreds of years old, if not more, and they know what they're doing. The Naraku are old too, maybe not the Tendoshu's age but they're definitely not fledglings."

"If I were you," Gintoki says, leaning up so he was closer to Hijikata's face for emphasis. "I wouldn't bother. If the Naraku are involved in anything it's by the will of the Tendoshu and that is absolute over this city, especially. If you think they're going to consider you a threat at all, you're wrong."

Hijikata frowns, looking up at Gintoki, eyes slit. "If what I'm piecing together is true, then the Naraku are somehow connected to all the murders and kidnappings going on. You expect me to sit back and let people keep dying?" He bites, the perm's dead look plastered across his face making him slowly begin to fume.

"Yes." Gintoki bites back. "You're underestimating their power, they'll kill you and your entire barracks. They don't deal well with humans interfering in their business." Once more, Hijikata feels that change in Gintoki's demeanor. This time, he's fairly certain what it is.

"How do you know all of this?" Hijikata growls low, observant.

"Because I was one of those that interfered."

The heated air around them seems to cool slowly, heavy with weight, Hijikata backing up, shaken by Gintoki's confession of his past. Gintoki's red eyes stare resolute back at him, dim and narrow, face poutingly serious.

"You wanted my advice and you got it: don't meddle."

"What should I do then, huh?" He scowls, at a loss.

"Keep to those lower kindred, the babies and binge eaters. Anything above is out of your league, especially when it comes to vampire politics."

Hijikata huffs, rolling his eyes. "What will you do?"

"Mind my business, like I always do. I've got things too important to lose, not again." Gintoki says, eyes falling on the bathroom door, the sound of Kagura's shower running in the background. "I know I promised to help and I will, I'll help you find Fukuda, but that's all. After that, I'm done."

Hijikata sighs, rolling his shoulders back, head throbbing. "I see…"

"If you can prove to me that the Naraku are not involved we'll go back to the original agreement, however, that's if you can prove it."

"Alright, alright, I understand." Hijikata doesn't like this obedience, doesn't like the fact that he's submitting to someone so shady, and especially doesn't like being told to back down. Most of all though, he doesn't like that he knows he needs Gintoki. Gintoki has been more than helpful in not only information but groundwork, too. He needs someone on both sides of the law, a human with vampire connections is highly valuable. Not only that, but Gintoki seems to be letting out the fact that he has vampire friends and if that's the case, his information is priceless.

He's not saying he's going to use Gintoki, but he's definitely going to get as much out of him that he can. He's sure Gintoki knows that too, because if there's one thing Gintoki isn't is ignorant.

Hijikata takes the first sip out of his condensating glass, the cool water refreshing his dry throat, somehow reminding him that he hadn't had a cigarette almost all day. It's the concussion, prohibiting him from making unhealthy decisions for the sake of not turning his brain (or lungs, for that matter) to mush. Maybe he'll actually quit smoking this time.

Kagura comes out of the bathroom with some pink china girl PJ's on, towel wrapped around her hair still.

"Gin-chan," She sniffs, nose runny and red like she had been sick. "Will you brush and dry my hair?"

He gives her a nod, telling her to bring out the hair dryer from the bathroom into the living room. She does as he's told and Hijikata decides he should probably leave, however, before he can say goodbye, Gintoki speaks over the dryer's noise, telling him that he'll walk him to the barracks once he's done.

Hijikata walks around the small living room looking at the picture of the Yorozuya trio Gintoki has sitting on his desk. The perm doesn't say anything about it either, letting Hijikata wander around as he pleases.

There's not much to see aside from a small white lamp, a jar of pens, and an old school telephone. Not to mention the TV that looked like it was on its last legs. The only thing noteworthy about the kitchen is a single yellow daisy in a jar, the water yellowing slightly as the flower began to die. Something tells him Kagura picked it, because that just seems like a Kagura thing to do. From what he can tell, she's picked up Gintoki's bad habits but can still manage to be girly when she wants to be. After all, she's not but fourteen or fifteen, that's the age teens still like to be babied every now and then, considering the fact that Gintoki is currently drying and brushing her hair for her.

It's not too long that the dryer shuts off, Gintoki going over her hair one more time with the brush. When he was satisfied, he shoos her up and she puts the bathroom supplies away, brushing her teeth while he watched Gintoki put on his white yukata, one arm hanging unfilled to the side. He calls out for her to close the bathroom door when she's done and by the time they begin to leave, she's curled up in the closet. Weird, but that was to be expected with this bunch.

"Kagura, I'm walking vice-commander-san here home, alright? I'll be back in a little bit."

"Be responsible!"

"Haah?! You brat, you're going to get me arrested with that type of talk! Right after I took care of your hair, too!"

She sticks her tongue out at him, blowing with a fart noise. "Kidding~!"

Gintoki shuts the door behind him with a huff and a quick apology, Hijikata leading the way down the stairs. Gintoki has his bouken with him which he's grateful for, Hijikata's own sword being a shabby replacement for his prior one while they forged him another.

The streets are relatively quiet being that it was a weekday and most people were getting ready for bed at the time. Hijikata is just grateful that the sun decided to finally go down, because the cooler air and lack of light made his head feel much better.

Most of the walk they spend in silence, which about accurately sums up the extent of their companionship. Work only, no time to learn the other's favorite color or innermost secrets. Hijikata was fine with that, he didn't need friendships. He had Kondo and at one time Mitsuba and that's about where it ended, because he's scared of losing more people. Not just that, but they're time and effort that Hijikata could be putting into work or training, and that always seemed more important in the long run. Cigarettes, mayonnaise, and work. That was all he needed.

The first person to say anything is Gintoki, of course, and he knows it's going to be snarky before it even leaves his mouth. "What does a prince get for walking his damsel home?"

"A handshake."

"Wow, with those toilet paper fingers? I'd rather not get cholera."

"Hu-huh?!" Hijikata spats slightly too loud, spit caught in the back of his throat, his brain pulsing back and warning him not to yell again. "Huh?" He says again, softer this time, Gintoki laughing at his expense. "You're a bastard."

He looks over at Gintoki who shrugs in reply, the perm's face adorned with a stupid grin that makes him frown, but he can't hold it there for long. He huffs, smile faint across his lips in the cooling night's air.

"No seriously, what do I get?"

"I already told you, idiot! A handshake!"

"I don't want that!" Gintoki gripes back with a laugh, pale skin faintly blue under the moonlight.

"Well, that's all that's on the table."

Gintoki grumbles something under his breath that Hijikata can't quite catch, the vice-commander shooting him an innocuous side look. He lets it go, the barracks nearing ahead. There's an awkward air between them and he's not entirely sure what it is, attributing it to his concussion.

When they reach the gates, Hijikata straightens out his tie instinctively, holding his hand out for Gintoki to shake. Once more, that cheeky charismatic grin falls across his lips, and Hijikata swallows as Gintoki takes his hand in his own.

"Goodnight, Hijikata-kun." Gintoki says, and Hijikata is sure that he didn't make up the way Gintoki's voice gently lifted up the suffix, playfully even.

"Night, perm head."


	12. Chapter Twelve

Gintoki stares lazily at the tan haired brat across from him, his dango being devoured as he watched. Of course, it wasn't like he could eat them, however it was another thing when it was his money that was used to buy them.

"Oi." Gintoki grumbles, catching the boring red eyes of his sadistic counterpart. "You could at least tell me why you blackmailed me for food instead of munching on it in front of my face like the world knows no sense of time."

Sougo just shrugs, placing down an empty stick on the plate and signalling for another, something Gintoki tries to wave his hands to stop, the owner ignoring him because he was getting more money from it. Stingy. "I'm a man of opportunity, danna. If I see some dango walking around, I'm going to take it."

"So now I'm just dango to you, huh? Is that all, huh?"

The owner comes by with the fresh plate and sets it down before the officer, Sougo picking up a new stick and starting on it.

"Oi… answer me."

"Everyone who has secrets is walking dango, danna." He states avowedly, mouth full, already round cheeks stuffed puffy and full.

Gintoki just narrows his eyes, head resting on his palm as the last of the evening sun battered down on his skin. He watches the brat eat a couple more bites before taking out his wallet to pay, three plates of dango being a small price for the safety of his secrets, he thought. Just as he's standing up to leave, Sougo calls his name once back more.

"Danna... do tell me, what are your intentions with Hijikata-san?" He almost purrs, red eyes bright underneath the burnt-orange sunlight, causing them to almost glow.

Gintoki turns back to him, frozen between not wanting to sit down and equally not wanting to leave if Sougo was actually going to talk instead of eat his money away. There was a good chance that the brat would be able to tell Gintoki some things that Hijikata was not willing to, and Gintoki did want that information.

"I'm helping him, nothing more." He thoughtfully replies, because it's true. His voice is calm, vulnerability shy underneath, he wants Sougo to see the sincerity.

Sougo just hums, watchful for any cracks in a well-constructed lie. But there is no lie, nothing to find some deeper malice hidden in. "So you don't want to kill him?"

"What makes you think I would want to do that?"

The officer thinly smiles back, the last cleaned stick laid gently down onto the plate, his arms crossed over the table. He decides it's okay to sit down again so he does, Sougo unmoving in the seat across from him.

"Well, for one, not all of your kind is as accepting of Shinsengumi laws as you are."

"Don't hate the player, hate the game." Gintoki retorts, a snort behind his words, making the other grin. There's a sigh somewhere in there as well, years of dodging around alleyways and prowling at bars making his whole statement vastly ironic. He's tired, been tired, but― "Although the game is not necessarily fair, we both know I'd be killed quicker trying to change it than I would trying to play it."

"You're right."

Gintoki wants answers, his mind racing with a variety of different questions to ask, all seeming a little too much for an afternoon blackmail dango session, so he goes with one that he's not quite sure why he wants to know. "Why is Hijikata so…"

"Angry? Annoying? Injured?" Gintoki makes an unconcerned pout with his lip, shrugging for Sougo to answer any of his replies. "Angry, well, he's been like that since we were kids. Same thing for annoying. Injured―"

"He told me he got messed up by a kindred." He quickly inputs, allowing the other to continue.

"Banged against a wall is a light way to put it. I'm surprised it didn't break his skull open. Almost cut off his pinkies trying to decapitate the thing."

"Pretty hardcore."

"I would've let it go― no, I wouldn't have even pursued it in the beginning. It cost two lives too many, all for his extreme vendetta." Sougo trails off, picking up a cleared stick and chewing on it mindlessly, but Gintoki is intrigued and so he prys further.

"His vendetta?"

"Most everybody in the Shinsengumi is there because they've lost someone or something to a kindred, but none of them are as bad as Hijikata-san."

It might be out of his area to question, but he does so anyway, as he'd never really been one for formalicy and all the one for prying into business not his. "What happened?"

Sougo looks away, teeth still bitten down onto the thin wood as he mumbles his next words. "You'll have to ask him yourself."

"I'm closer to you than I am to him, and he doesn't even know the truth."

Sougo, once more, smiles, gaze falling in line with Gintoki's own. "Ask him one day about a 'Mitsuba'. He might try to beat you up, but realistically what can he really do in the state that he's in right now? He'll swing and miss, his balance is so bad― and it's already been three weeks since that attack." The officer laughs, just a little too much spite hidden beneath the surface. Gintoki frowns at the undertone, sticking a hand inside the worn half of his yukata, not daring to ask anymore questions on that topic.

"Has he told you what I told him?"

"About the... greater powers? He has. I'm his second in command, after all." (The "whether he likes it or not" heavy implied afterward.) "If he was to get picked off without sharing his… unwritable information, then there would be no one left to take up the loose ends, right?"

Gintoki hums in agreeance. "I feel two ways about it," Sougo continues, "I don't like the idea of anything having an upper hand on us but I'm also not a fool when it comes to things like this. I know we can't do anything with the current power we possess."

Ah, so some Shinsengumi dogs do have heads on their shoulders after all. "I don't know if you ever will." He replies back with a single wave of his hand nonchalantly.

"Danna, you were human once, surely you still remember that with diligence and a fair taste for revenge, we mortals can do and obtain anything we please." The words roll off the boy's lips like silken venom, as a snake hushed and poised to strike. But there's a level of comedy to them too, a challenging joke one step too close to being fighting words, but one step away nonetheless.

If anything could scare Gintoki anymore he has long since mastered a mask of total indifference, a confidence in his own abilities as a swordsman before relying on pretty magics. He's careful, not reckless, confident but not proud, and it has saved his tail more times than he can count, this being no different. "I guess you're right." The statement coming quickly out, eyes bored and lulled.

Sougo just chuckles in reply, his catty demeanour shifting once more. It's just a test, Gintoki has learned, he just wants to see how far I can be bent.

"You're quite interesting, danna."

"Your whole band of tax-stealers are the ones that are interesting."

"And you're sure no one is listening to this conversation?"

"I've been paying attention, no one is listening from as much as I can sense and anyone above my power probably doesn't care much about the Shinsengumi's affairs anyway."

Sougo grins, Gintoki mirroring the motion. He likes this kid. "Very good, danna. We've sent a couple of spies out to various nightclubs, hoping that we would get a bite out from Fukuda but it's been quiet."

"He's probably left that scene entirely after what happened to his partner."

"A smart move on his part, we're stumbling around blindly trying to get a hold on this guy but we have nothing. Nishio is a lost cause, he only wants to talk when you're there and everything else is just taunting meaninglessness, so we might have to get you to come down to the station for that."

"You know that's not in my best interests." Gintoki says bluntly, surprised he had gotten away the first time from the place as put-together as he entered it and he wasn't too confident that he would be able to do it again.

"I know, that's why I keep telling Hijikata-san that we can find something meaningful without you interrogating him but he's getting impatient, as he does. We're all getting a little impatient."

He can't help but snort at the prospect. "Sounds tough."

"I realize this is none of your affair or business for that matter, but if Hijikata won't admit it to you then I will. We need someone like you. He's too high on his horse to get the help of any non-threatening kindred―"

"I doubt he even believes such a thing exists." Gintoki interjects and now it's Sougo's turn to snort in amusement.

"You're right." There's a quick pause, "I'll just give it to you short. We need anything you can find on Fukuda's whereabouts or businesses."

"I already knew that. What makes you so sure that I'll even be able to find anything noteworthy?"

"Because in almost every step of the way you've found what we've been looking for before we did."

"Yes, sure, that's great, but what makes you so sure I'll be able to do it again?"

"Danna, I know you have connections. You've often been spotted with a man with long black hair. Now, I don't have to say much more on that one, do I?" Gintoki glares, unsure of where Sougo was taking this newly exposed information. "I'll be real with you. I don't care what relationship you and Katsura have, he's calmed down recently and you've been nothing but helpful to us, so I trust your trust in him. Besides, we have the more troubling matters of the missing women and the deaths on the streets to solve and that takes precedence over one old washed-up Joui rebel."

"Does Hijikata know?"

"Know of your connection to Katsura? No, he doesn't. I don't always tell him the things I find most interesting, because he doesn't wait patiently for situations to play out like I do."

"Quite the subordinate you are."

Sougo shrugs, "I'll make sure you're paid for going through the extra trouble of seeking out our man―"

"―Or any information on him, yes?"

"Or any information on him." The officer confirms. "It's my understanding that Hijikata plans to be going out and scouting some nightclubs himself. I'll try to figure out which and on what day, he needs someone with him to protect him, especially with his concussion. It's getting better because he's been smoking less, but if he goes to a place like that he'll be questioned on why he isn't drinking."

"Clubs are for drinking, dancing, and conversation, all things Hijikata has never been able to do well, even without the injury."

"Exactly, which is why he needs you there to "drag him along", so to speak."

"I'll do my best."

"You two work well together. I don't think either of you see it, but I do. He's got a soft spot for you whether he wants to admit it or not."

"Ambition will make even the best blind."

Sougo laughs once more, the owner coming by and picking up the empty plates, Gintoki paying him while he was there. The frail old man bows his head in thanks, wobbling back behind his counter. "Get to know him, danna. I think that you will be pleasantly surprised."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know, it may just save your life in the future."

"You're assuming I'm going to get caught." He retorts back quickly.

The officer stands up to leave, a stick of bubble gum thrown in his mouth, hands shoved lazily in his pockets. "Haven't you already?" He blows a bubble, smirk faint across his lips as he watched the perm's face for any sort of reaction to his words. "You know how to find me should you need any help. I'll be reaching out to you soon, danna. Take care of yourself~."

Gintoki watches the back of the black uniform fade into the evening's buzz down the street. Finally, once the officer was out of sight, he lifts himself up out of the bench, meandering his way (eventually) back home.

He hears the extra breaths before he reaches the steps, a familiar presence sitting in the living room that could only belong to one person.

"Hijikata? What are you doing here so late?"

"I came to see you. Update you." The other replies, "It's been three weeks since we last talked."

"I just got done chatting with that sadist you call a captain, surely he can fill you in. Can't you see Gin-san is tired? He's had a very long da-"

"Gintoki, with all due respect, I would rather tell you myself."

Shinpachi enters from the kitchen, clearing his throat. "Hijikata-san has been waiting here for over an hour now, surely you can spare him some time, Gin-san." He states, setting a new fresh cup of tea down on the table next to Hijikata's old empty one.

Gintoki watches him move, Kagura munching on her sukonbu while kicking one leg back and forth mindlessly as she stares at the TV, completely oblivious to what was happening around her. The older teen gives the perm a look that is mixed somewhere in between restrained curiosity and minute provocation, holding the tea tray against his chest like a shield. He wants to know, wants to be a part of whatever keeps bringing the Vice-Commander into their space. Ah, Gintoki really can't do this.

"Pachi-boy, Kagura-chan," he coos in his signature monotone timbre, "can you two go bother the hag downstairs until I come to get you? She always has spare rice and we're running low on food again."

The breath sucked through Shinpachi's nose is deep and quick and it hits Gintoki harder than it probably should. He's scared, the very last thing he wants is to hurt his relationship with them again, not now after it had just been fixed. Still, Shinpachi takes the tray with whitening fingers and turns on his heels, bringing it to the kitchen. Kagura, finishing her sukonbu, just hops off her futon and walks to the door wordlessly, eyes glued to the TV until she passes the angle where she can't see it anymore. Gintoki dips into his room to retrieve his thicker red and black haori for Kagura to put over her pajamas, the fall nights now growing colder as it slowly became winter. Shinpachi has his own haori, which is already put on by the time the perm exits his room, the boy slipping on his sandals.

Kagura holds out her arm for Gintoki to slide the cloth on, making sure it was straight across her shoulders with how big it was. Shinpachi is watching him, he feels the eyes watching his own, longing for a sense of security. This time, he gives it to him, leaning over and gently pulling the boy's head close to whisper in his ear that he would tell them as soon as the Vice-Commander had left. Shinpachi seems to settle down with this, a firm nod given in reply as Gintoki opens the door for them to leave. Once they're through, he slides it back closed, turning around to face Hijikata who had been watching him the entire time.

Gintoki quickly smiles back at the officer, listening as he walked back to the couch to Kagura and Shinpachi's footsteps as they made it down safely into the bar. That's enough, if there's any danger to be found in the bar Otose knows how to call him down in only a few words to solve the problem; they were a well-oiled machine when it came to that endeavor

"I can't tell if you're more of a dad or a big brother." Hijikata candidly comments, sipping on his tea, Gintoki plopping down on the opposite couch.

He chuckles slightly at the sentiment, crossing one leg over his other, one hand resting over the back of the couch. "Neither can I sometimes, though I'm not interested in either position." Hijikata just raises his eyebrows, like it was hard to believe. "What? It's true. How is your head? Is it almost back to it's normal level of fucked up, or is it still at it's previous level of tremendously-fucked-up? What about those mummy fingers?"

"I'm doing better. Thanks for asking, asshole." Hijikata grumbles, which Gintoki finds is growing increasingly more fun to do. He's known it was fun since the first time the two met and he'd stolen Hijikata's last cigarette in exchange for his inconvenient (but thankful) mix-up with Katsura, but now that he understands Hijikata a little more, he relishes in the jives and jabs he can throw playfully every now and then.

"No, seriously, how are you doing?" He replies, trying as best as he can to change his grin into something less snarky and more comforting, because this is his business partner after all and he cares a little bit more for Hijikata's wellbeing than he should, given his permanent vampiric position.

"I'm fine." Hijikata states again, reaching into his pocket to pull a cigarette from habit, finding the box empty. With a frown, he corrects himself. "I'm getting better. Head still hurts like a bitch day in and out, especially with the sun still beaming down in the afternoons, but it's slowly becoming more manageable. My fingers are almost healed up too, gonna keep the bandages on for a couple more days just to be safe." He stretches his right hand out, feeling the pull against the motion. "The new scars make the skin feel tight and uncomfortable but it will be gone as soon as I can get back to training like I used to. Head needs to settle down first before that can happen, sadly."

Gintoki just grins, Hijikata's eyes coming up to meet his own after he drops his hand back in his lap where it was before. "I think that's the most personal information you've ever told me."

"Tch, don't get used to it."

"Why not? I think if we were to actually become friends then we might be able to make this whole ordeal a bit easier, don't you think?"

"I don't make friends easily." Hijikata throws out dismissively, retreating back to his tea.

"I know you don't, but you haven't tried with me yet, have you?"

Hijikata's brows furrow in a mix of emotions, undecided on how to reply to the perm before he finally lands on a quick, "No, I haven't."

"See?" Gintoki can't help but grin at this too, because although it should be against his better judgement, there's something in him that's telling him it's a good idea and it's certainly not Sougo's well-placed comments about them from earlier. However, Gintoki's never been one not to follow his gut, so he grabs a hold of it and runs. "What's your favorite color?"

"Really? That's the first thing you're going to ask me?"

"God, could you just answer something without questioning it for once?"

Hijikata glares, the action harmless, sipping once before the tea fell right back to rest in his lap. "Blue."

"Really? I thought you would've been like a green type of person."

"Could you not question everything for one?"

"Aye! Aye, okay… What about your favorite food?"

"Mayonnaise."

"That's not a food, Hijikata-kun."

"Oi, there you go again, questioning my answers."

"Because I asked for food!"

"All foods are good if they're with mayonnaise!"

"Alright! Okay! What about…"

"What about we talk about what I came here to tell you?" Hijikata inputs before Gintoki has the time to think of finishing his sentence.

The perm frowns, cheeks puffing up slightly in a pout. "You're no fun."

"Yeah, well, I'm out of cigarettes and my head hurts so as "unfun" as I may be, I'd rather be back home."

Sighing in defeat, Gintoki watches Hijikata pull out a single paper from the inside of his navy yukata, unfolding it. "You have to answer one more question after we get done talking though."

"Why?"

"Because we're trying to get to know each other, remember? Come on, your concussion can't be that bad―"

"Fine, but listen first." The paper is messy and littered with sloppy written characters, like Hijikata had to transcribe everything down in a hurry. "I don't know what you talked about with Sougo, but I'll tell you that currently, we're struggling. We haven't had this much trouble with a case in a long time but now that we're here, we don't know where to go. Everything seems to be cut off in a dead end, with whatever little we find closing shortly after. There's virtually no leads to go off of."

Gintoki sits back against the couch, blowing a stray ticklish strand of hair away from his nose. "Sougo told me that you guys were in deep shit, yes."

There's a purse of Hijikata's lips that Gintoki knows means he wants to rebuke, to say that they've got everything under control but they don't, so he instead continues on with his previous train of thought. "Long story short, I came here to ask you if you would accompany me to this list of nightclubs owned by Fukuda and, formally of course, Nishio. We haven't shut them down yet because we thought there would be more to get out of them, but the men that I have sent there have come back empty handed. Maybe we can't see what you do in these places. Either way, you're our last shot before we start getting to more reckless measures that I really don't want to have to implement." There's a tired sigh, Hijikata setting his emptied tea cup down onto the coffee table with a low thud. "Being entirely honest with you, at this point, I don't care what connections you use so long as you help us get back on the right track."

Gintoki laughs, genuinely, because these police officers will be the second death of him. "You and Sougo both… seriously, what makes you two so sure that I'm not going to turn this thing around over your heads?" There's a grin thrown in there too, for intimidation purposes, but Hijikata stares just as resolutely back as before. He continues before the other has a chance to talk, just to prod the question open further. "What makes you so sure that I have all the pure intentions I say I have?"

Hijikata clears his throat, "I'm fairly confident in me and Sougo's abilities to see through deception and malicious intent. He's even better at it than me sometimes, I will admit. After all, this isn't my first go-around and hopefully it won't be my last." He huffs, "Besides, you're all we got right now and your help finding and taking in Nishio wasn't some small feat."

"And what makes you so sure I have all the connections you think I have?" He questions further, honestly wanting to know why Hijikata thinks he's some underworld bigshot. He is, in a small way, to be such close friends with Katsura who runs practically the biggest band of vampires and humans alike; but of course he doesn't see Katsura as the big bad criminal-kindred gang leader he is, after being friends with him for so long (along with the help of staying as far away from politics as possible). He assumes the police must not know the whole extent of Katsura's reach across Edo, or else Sougo wouldn't have denounced him the way that he did.

"I'm sure you know it yourself, sometimes you can just tell what people have gotten themselves into just by looking at them." Hijikata points at Gintoki's uncovered arm with a swift motion of his head, long-since healed scars lining the expanse of flesh until they disappeared underneath his sleeve.

"I'm sure you and I gained our scars in a much different way, Hijikata-kun." Gintoki retorts back quickly.

"That leads me to believe that you gained yours in not any inherently good ways, since I've been working in the Shinsengumi protecting citizens for most of my life now."

If there was any form of a smile left on his face from before it had now entirely fallen into a look of piercing callousness, darkened and dimmed red eyes staring back into Hijikata's obstination. Stubborn, these police officers are always so damn stubborn. "I think you misunderstand, where our goals align, our methods differ."

He doesn't miss the puzzlement that flashes across Hijikata's brows, leaving just as quickly as it had come. "What do you mean by that?"

"We both protect people, the ways that we carry out that duty, however, varies." He says firmly back, "To put it simply, I did what I had to." Hijikata leans back in his seat, eyes not leaving Gintoki's. "Don't look at me like that, Hijikata-kun. We were becoming friends, right? Friends share secrets, even though those secrets sometimes might be hard to tell."

Hijikata scoffs, turning his head away to look out the window at the night sky. There's a long silence between them and Gintoki allows it to simmer until Hijikata finally decides to speak up, the wet sound of his lips opening to speak before closing once more, unsurity pushed aside when he finally says, "Are all of your secrets hard to tell?"

"Yes," he replies, pausing. "Most of them." He pauses again, his eyes following the small shifts in Hijikata's expression with his answer. "Are yours?"

"Most of them." The officer repeats back, "Many are too full of regrets to tell anyone."

Gintoki decides this might be his one and only chance, fully aware that this could and probably would blow right back up in his face. Taking the gamble, he asks anyway. "Like Mitsuba?"

Hijikata's head whirls around to face him like he'd been struck, eyes wide at the name, quickly narrowed by the name out of his mouth. He shoots forward, fist landing in the center of the table, making the empty glass cup pop up from the wood with the impact. "Where did you hear that?!"

"Sougo has quite the mouth on him, telling me all sorts of things." Gintoki remains indifferent, body still open towards Hijikata, unmoved at the blatant show of emotion.

"What did he say?!" Hijikata barks out with a little too much enunciation, sitting back down because Gintoki knows that he must be getting hit with the dizzying effects of whipping his head around with the concussion not fully healed.

"Nothing at all, only mentioned the name, also said I'd probably get beat up but that you'd swing and miss because your balance is still bad."

Hijikata grumbles an insult about Sougo under his breath. "Is that seriously all he told you? Her name?"

"I swear."

"Tch, good."

"So what happened?" Gintoki prys, head resting on his hand that was propped up on the back of the couch.

"None of your business, if we're friends then we certainly aren't that close."

"One day, then." Gintoki says almost wistfully. Hijikata lets the topic drop.

"Tomorrow night."

"Hmm?" The perm hums, his attention drawn back to the other before him.

"I'm going to the first club tomorrow night. Can you come?"

There's a grin, Gintoki swiftly standing up and bowing, one arm in front of his stomach and the other behind his back to emphasize the grandioseness of the act. "Of course, milady." He hears Hijikata scoff, shooting him a quick "bastard" before standing up and collecting his cup. The perm watches Hijikata take it and set it in the kitchen sink next to his first one, turning around with a huff.

"You can bring the kids back up here, I'm sure it's getting late for them." He says, walking to the door, his new sword that had been left respectfully next to Gintoki's own now clasped in his hand.

"Let me walk you back. Since it's this late, I'll be having to take Shinpachi home anyways, if he doesn't want to stay the night." Hijikata watches him slip on his boots silently before finally accepting the offer with a nod.

It doesn't take them but a minute after to get downstairs and find the bar still rowdy with friday night drunks, Shinpachi having an easy conversation with Tama and Otose as Kagura mindlessly went through her, most likely, thousandth bowl of rice. Hijikata stays by the door, Otose shooting him one glance when he had walked in and then another over Gintoki's shoulder as he asked whether or not Shinpachi wanted to stay the night at the Yorozuya's. He bows slightly to her, she tilts her head down in return, the smell of her cigarette nestled between thin, aging fingers making him a little more ansty than it should. Gintoki turns, the two kids sliding off their stools behind him and saying their goodnights to Otose, before leaving with them back into the chilly nighttime. Gintoki watches them climb up the stairs, not moving until they were in the house with the door shut behind them.

The walk to the barracks is quiet, but not an uncomfortable type of quiet. Though not one word is spoken between them until they get to the entrance where Gintoki drops him off, it's stillness that doesn't hang awkwardly but instead connects, and Hijikata finds it awfully weird.

"I never got to ask you that last question." The perm finally says as Hijikata's turning around to tell him goodnight.

"You're really concerned about that, now?"

"Yes, it's very important to me."

"What is it then?"

"Hmm… opinions on goodnight kisses?" The perm says with an all-too-bright smirk and Hijikata shakes the own man's hand before he has a chance to say anything else that floods him with second-hand embarrassment. He turns on a heel, stomping off toward the barracks, Gintoki's eyes following him as he went.

A hundred yen later and he's called from a nearby phone booth to Otose, to let her tell the kids that he was down there helping close up for the night. He wasn't, but Shinpachi is already growing suspicious with the appearance of the vice-commander and that seems like the best way to handle the situation, given all the circumstances. After all, it wasn't anything out-of-the-blue for Gintoki to spend time with Otose, the kids knew how much spending time with her meant to him, and likewise, Otose knew how much Gintoki's freedom of movement helped to keep them all safe. She would lie for him again, just as she had countless other times.

Now that that was settled, he had a wig to meet.

Katsura is not too hard to find, if you know the places to look. Between the three most often used hideouts, Zura is in the second one he checks, the one that he'd last went into last time when talking to Katsura's underling. It's also the biggest one of the three and even though one would think a soundproof meeting room would cover up a certain dark-haired perm's disgustingly loud laughter, it still echoes off the thick walls with fervor.

He taps the password into the door lightly with the bend of his finger, knowing the one on the other side could hear it as Katsura would never allow a job as important as the door's guard to be held by a human. What small conversations had been going on inside stop immediately; he's fully aware they're all poised to strike should he be a threat, Zura trains them well. The door creaks open just a hair, Gintoki's eyes meeting the sliver of face blocking the light inside, before he's asked about his business here.

He's uninvited, but Katsura would never shut his door in Gintoki's face, so he tells the man simply his name and to call it out to the idiots in the back. The reply is quick, the thick wooden door opened to let him in almost instantly, shut hastily behind him the moment he's through the threshold. He walks himself back to the meeting room where he knows he'd heard Sakamoto, ignoring the mixture of looks he receives crossing the general living area. Through the corner of his eye, he can see Elizabeth playing cards with a group of three other men, the only people in the entire room that seemingly didn't have something to think about his presence.

The door is locked, muffled talking of no sort of urgency between his two friends. He knocks, the scoot of an expecting chair sounding to let him in.

"Kintoki! Ahaha!" Sakamoto gushes, bright and loud and overwhelmingly excited as usual. His breath smells of mint and sake, the same sake sitting in front of an unimpressed and equally drunk Zura. "It has been forever since we've last seen each other!"

"If by forever you mean roughly three weeks ago, then yes, it's been forever Tatsuma." Gintoki grins, lightly pushing him down into the seat that he'd gotten up from. Sakamoto gives him a look which he knows means the other doesn't remember with his drunken goldfish brain, but that's okay. Gintoki wishes he could forget, too.

Katsura's eyes follow him as he takes the seat next to Sakamoto, his robe drooping off his shoulder with intoxication, thin fingers holding the small, plain white sake glass. "Gintoki, what brings you here?" He speaks quickly and with a slight slur behind the words, leaning forward to push the remaining taste of alcohol in Gintoki's direction.

They must have been here for a long time simply drinking and catching up, because the small amount of blood Katsura does have tints his pale cheeks with a hint of red. Although it didn't take much for Sakamoto to get wasted and unsurprisingly even more giggly than he already was, it did however take a lot for Zura to reach the level he was at. The sake had to fight against his body's immortal controls and low blood flow, the former of which beginning to slowly let go and allow for drunken instability.

Gintoki hums, swirling the contents of the jar before downing the last few sips, the slight tang that would normally taste good to a human sitting uncomfortably on his tongue. It's not like it mattered, he never drank for the taste of it even before he was turned.

"What?" He finally replies, "Can I not catch up with two friends?"

"'M not saying you can't, jus' that you had no idea that we were even here and I know you sought us out because you have something you want to talk about." Katsura returns, eyes fluttering and lulled under the dimness of the old overhead lightbulb. He hasn't seen Zura this drunk since they were teens.

"Mn, mn, mn… nothing ever gets past you, does it?" Gintoki doesn't have to put on a mask here, doesn't have to think his way through all of his words. He merely exists and Zura understands both the spoken and the unspoken. Sakamoto's the same as well, more so that Gintoki likes to admit, always carrying fears of hurting people close to him. It's not like he's closed to Tatsuma, it's merely because he knows Katsura would be able to stop him before anything happened, should it happen, something the louder perm couldn't do.

"If you know that, then spill." Katsura says quickly, slouching back in his chair, the back of his long hair tangling against the worn and rough wood.

And Gintoki does. He makes sure to recall the conversation with Sougo almost word for word, Katsura's eyebrows peeking up in interest at the mention of his own name, staying quiet as Gintoki finished the story. Though shameful to admit, he talks about what had happened with Shinpachi's blow up on him before he lost control, finally ending with telling them of his meetings with Hijikata and what they had talked about both nights, the Tendoshuu and the Naraku being written down on meeting paper before promptly burned in the fire behind Zura.

"―And now I'm going to help him by going to the remaining clubs of Fukuda's." Gintoki sips from his own white sake glass, brought by an underling along with a new full jar of alcohol somewhere in the middle of him recalling his fight with Shinpachi. "I've already told him finding Fukuda is the last thing I'll do. I refuse to get into their business again, not with Shinpachi and Kagura and the old hag so close by."

"You've never been involved, Gintoki― what 'appened to sensei doesn't count." Zura reminds, brushing a stray strand of hair that falls in his face away with the back of his hand.

"Hmpf, sure feels like it does..." Gintoki grumbles, Sakamoto pouring him a new glass, silent because he knows he can't speak on the subject.

"Whatever." Katsura grumbles back at him, the alcohol making him prickly. "You're gettin' awfully close to these police."

"Are you really going to nag me on this again? I thought you had enough last time we talked about him."

"Hijikata isn't exactly known to be the most compromising person, Gintoki. Forgive me fer watching out for you when you seem so content on frolicking around with senseless killers." There's resentment there, spite usually hidden underneath the surface brought out with the fog of liquid confidence.

"Frolicking around with killers? Have you forgotten all the war crimes we committed, Zura?" Gintoki shoots calmly back, seeing the moment his words struck a nerve in Katsura.

He leans forward, bangs catching in his eyelashes, "Yes, life or death, but you know as much as I do that this can be manageable so long as we are not murdered for simply existing!"

"I wouldn't call myself a managabl―"

"You don't dare call yourself a kindred either so long as you can forget and pretend!" Katsura spits back, glaring into Gintoki's eyes fixed on the blank wall. "We aren't teenagers anymore, stop running away and face it." The wooden chair creaks against the floor, his white haori just a flash in Gintoki's vision as Katsura flings open the door, shocking the unfortunate subordinate caught on the other side.

Zura glares down at him, the same one who had brought the last jar of sake, caught now panicking with a shake so great it almost knocks the cap off of the bottle. Gintoki swiftly gets up and meets him, one hand taking hold of the liquor while the other gently motioned Katsura back into the room, a thin, generous and thanking smile on his lips as he closed the door with his foot.

"Sit down and chill." The perm commands, pulling down on the wig's sleeve, Katsura's weight scooting the chair back further when he sat. "You're too fucking noisy when you get drunk..." Sakamoto opens the new jar, pouring all of their cups for them. "You say things that hurt Gin-san's feelings that you would usually only say after I pressed you into admitting them. Hearing them come out all unprovoked hurts, you know? Even though this heart doesn't beat as much as it should, it still feels, you know?" Gintoki chides, Katsura is watching him fixedly, one hand clasp around his filled cup, the other limp and unmoving in his lap.

Gintoki understands where Katsura is coming from, understands the frustration he's caused. He knows Katsura feels like he's alone in this immortal battle, with both his friends that he had suffered with either gone entirely or disconnected from the realities of it. Zura has never dealt with feeling alone well since they were kids, afraid to lose the few things that he still has left to hold on to. Gintoki is no better with coping with things like that either. He wouldn't call himself disconnected but he's also not doing anything to confront it, the bottom of an empty bottle being his one of his few therapies.

Finally, just when the silence had begun to weigh thick and unpleasant over them, Katsura shifts, leaning up and muttering a quick 'sorry'. Gintoki doesn't say anything back, simply watching his friend with an understanding soft smile, Sakamoto fiddling with a loose string on his sleeve with as much drunken concentration that he can muster. Katsura sighs, bringing his cup up to drink, motioning for Gintoki to do the same.

He doesn't need to drink too much tonight, doesn't want the look of dejection from Shinpachi when Gintoki comes in later than he should from walking Hijikata back, smelling like alcohol and bad decisions. However, a few more drinks won't make his words slur or his attitude change and they definitely won't have him blacked out in the entrance to the apartment, so he raises his glass with Zura, lips soft against the ceramic.

It's as the liquor begins to tickle out against his lip does he smell it, the faint twinge of something not inherent to the original contents. Before Katsura can catch up to it, the sake is wetting the floor, pieces of white cup scattered around the room in little, blunt shards, Gintoki's body looming over Sakamoto's. He immediately turns to Tatsuma, thankfully finding his glass untouched from when he had poured it before. Katsura's lips come together to try to make out a coherent question which is never said, his attention shifted instead to Gintoki lifting up the jar and smelling, trying to read the subtle looks that cross his face.

"High-grade tranquilizer." He finally says and sets down the jar once more, running the possibilities through his mind. "Who is the guy that brought the jar in?"

"Konishi Nagakore…" Katsura stumbles, confused, he too swimming while trying to tie pieces together. "He's a fairly close advisor to me, I trust him."

"Trust him enough to let him enter your bedroom?"

"He's woken me up a couple times, yes, but not like any of my other advisors." Gintoki hums, the frown that follows the reply showing that Katsura didn't like the silence. "I believe you have someone who was trying to get you drunk enough where you wouldn't notice the slip in your drink. It's not like you use your powers in this setting often, so you wouldn't notice anything had gone wrong until met with an attacker. It's also easier to distract given the fact you're housing a guest... any clue who it would be?"

Katsura's eyes flicker over to the remnants of the cup in thought, eyebrows pinched in a mix of confusion and aggravation. "I― I don't… I don't know."

Careful not to fling open the door to the central room, he peeks his head out of the threshold, met with inconspicuous bickering on the opposite side. There's a quiet, tense exchange going on between the entry guard who'd let him in earlier and the man identified as Konishi Nagakore who had his back turned to him. Without turning his head, Gintoki whispers back at Katsura to stay and watch the rest of his men, quietly opening the door further to allow the rest of his body through so as to not alert the assailant.

The door, however, has other plans, hinges letting out a distinctive squeak the moment he was almost through. Konishi's head whips around, eyes widening in realization his plan has been caught prematurely. Grabbing the handle of the door, he throws it open with the force of his body, the wood barely missing the guard who blinked out of the way of the impact. The handle collides with the wall, punching a hole in its wake, Konishi already well out of the building by the time Gintoki crosses the room after him.

He's fast for a human, body built for running and the clothes to help him along the way. It would be so much easier to simply blink up to him and catch him like that, but the risk involved with using immortal gifts, should someone see it, is too great. So, he sprints after him, bouken clutched tightly in his right hand, cutting corners with his own toned features that never deteriorate with age or tire with breathlessness.

The hour is late, not late enough that people aren't out and about on the streets but late enough that the deeper alleys are now fully plunged in darkness, the dim and cheap lanterns in the distance doing little to help the man in pursuit. He tosses down trash cans he passes by, spilling their contents in front of Gintoki's path, looking back with every litter to see where the perm was behind him. He ducks under clotheslines and over fences, leading Gintoki through the back parts of the city and along the riverbank.

Gintoki finally catches up to him on a narrow bridge on the outskirts of the suburb, tossing him by his collar over the short side and down onto the grass a few feet below. His neck is wet with sweat, the exertion from the chase, Gintoki wiping off his hand on his yukata with a grossed-out grimace. The perm jumps down to meet him on the grassy bank, ears full of the sounds of still-flowing water and heaving breaths and the man tries to lift his exhausted body up off the ground.

Gintoki nudges him lightly, enough to make his arms give out from under him. "Good exercise, huh?" There's a grin, Konishi's brows pinching at it in the place of a frown. "Do this a few more times and you'll be fit for Otsuu's top fanclub in no time. I know the guy who runs it, I can get you in if you want―" The man spits in his direction, Gintoki's head already out of it's path the second it leaves his mouth. "So... that's a no?"

"God, shut the fuck up!" Konishi bites, rolling over, Gintoki's boot catching his arm and immediately turning him back.

"Sorry, no can do. We aren't done here yet so you'll have to bear with hearing me talk for a little while longer."

"What do you want?!"

He can't help but raise his eyebrows in amusement, a huff of a laugh before he replies, "What do I want? I wasn't the one fleeing after hearing a door squeak open, kind of incriminating, don't you think?" The man rolls his eyes, staying quiet as he still tried to level his breathing, the perm watching him think through the ways he was going to escape. "What were you running from?"

"Nothing," he heaves, "just getting my training jog in, right? Then, all of a sudden, there was this unsightly white… thing chasing behind me." He mirrors Gintoki's grin, hand pulling open his robe to let the night air flow through. "I apologize for how I acted, just can't imagine having hair that awful looking. Truly frightening. That's what kept me running."

"Ah, I see. Yes, it is very hard to comb..." He looks up at the mess, cross-eyed, fluffing the curls. "You should see it out of the shower―" Konishi swings at his face, dagger drawn out from the inside of his loosened clothes. Gintoki sees it coming, the blade swiftly blocked from touching skin by his bouken, but more attacks come rapidly after, the wielder expecting of his agility. The blade tries to make contact with flesh, viable targets like his face, hands, and legs all aimed and swung at in the span of less than a couple seconds, the man obviously trained in quick, thin striking.

It's impressive, he must say. Gintoki is not sure whether his stamina recovers quickly or if he'd actually been fooled by the man's acting skills; either way, he's not going to be allowing Konishi to get the satisfaction of landing a hit. While the other's hand is drawn back, Gintoki catches it with his free one, bouken coming down hard just below Konishi's last rib, knocking the breath out of his lungs. The perm squeezes his wrist until the blade falls loose to the grass, Gintoki picking it up to keep secure in his hand.

"Tranquilizer on this too, huh?" He surmises, the man dryly coughing by his feet. "That stuff isn't cheap, how are you getting your hands on so much of it?" He doesn't get an answer, only a sweaty middle finger tossed up haphazardly. In return, he taps the man's head with the end of his bouken. "Oi, don't make this harder than it needs to be. I told you we weren't done yet."

The man tries to get up and run, scrambling with already spent legs through tall weeds. Gintoki blinks forward, sticking a foot out in front of his path. Konishi promptly hits the ground with a thud, kicked over to face the perm, still wheezing from the previous pain lingering in his side.

"Come on now, about that tranquiliz―" Uncovered with the impact of the fall, a gold chain falls delicately into the blades of grass, at the end of it, a crucifix, tiny ruby jewels at each of the four points. His face scrunches with confusion, the uncommon symbol glaring back at him, along with the two eyes of its owner. "You're a christian-?"

"I am—" Konishi bites back, flustered with resentment. He tucks his necklace back into the cross of his robes rashly, fingers fumbling with the fold. "Do you have a problem with it?!"

Gintoki shakes his head, lips pursed. He'll have to ask Katsura and Hijikata about that later. "Back to the point," he takes a hold of the man's wrists, lifting him smoothly up with one arm before submerging them in the shadows underneath the bridge. The acquired blade is brought up to the man's neck, a nervous gulp in reply as the tip of the blade runs along the dampened skin. "Who do you work for?"

As expected, Konishi glares back stubbornly, with no attempt to give away his secrets. "This has high-grade tranquilizer on it, I'm sure you know what that means for your body." The man's arms fight underneath his hold, Gintoki not able to hold back the sadistic grin that makes its way across his face. "Sure, it won't kill you, but I can't promise you that I won't."

"I'm not telling you shit!" He bites back with teeth barred, the top knot of his hair coming loose, unruly strands falling in front of his face.

"Ohoho, isn't it bad for christians to swear? Aren't you sacrificing your soul in a very… uncertain situation?" The wrists under his grip struggle again. Frankly, he's tired of going back and forth with this man who had clearly been trying to kill one of his closest friends. The fact he wasn't dead already was merely a testament to the two pleading police officers growing influence on him. Throwing patience to the wind, the blade cuts into the bottom of his neck, much more than a mere nick. Gintoki makes sure it peels skin up in it's wake, blood flowing down the side and onto the dirty concrete beneath him. The throat beneath the blade constricts, Konishi's lips puckering slightly as he tried to keep his composure, tears welling up unwillingly in the corners of his eyes.

"Let's try this again. Who are you working for and why do they want Zura dead?" Still, Gintoki is met with a thick silence. Like a light switch, any semblance of earlier enjoyment from the man's pain is gone, smile dropping from his lips as if it had never lived there. The blade stops, moving to an untouched patch of skin on the other side, Konishi's breaths jagged and strained. "I'm going to keep going until I hear talking." Comes coolly in warning, but there is no waiting for an answer before the blade mars a new wound. Konishi desperately gasps, gagging on the sharp intake of air. His knees kick at Gintoki's back, impetuous and untinking in their assail. Thankfully for his attacker, the perm is unmoving underneath the movement or else he could have found the blade slipping deeper into his neck than Gintoki had planned for it to.

Though not cutting deep, the slow drag of flesh being peeled up beneath a steady and determined hand had the nerve endings a lit like fire, the tingling feeling it brought akin to bugs crawling beneath his skin. There's a scream this time, promptly muffled by the forearm that had been occupied holding wrists up, allowing for Konishi's hands to clasp around his own, tears falling freely now down the side of his face after finding himself unable to pry Gintoki's blade from his neck. His eyebrows twitch through the torture, veins popping up on both sides of his forehead, eyes bloodshot and glazed over.

Gintoki whispers a brief 'shh' as he continues, the second wound now almost cut equal to the first, sweaty palms slipping from around his wrist as they struggled against his unyielding strength. His eyes are glowing now, the beast, though having been adequately fed and taken care of since Gintoki's mishap, is enjoying the show playing out in front of it, called from beneath the surface by the smell and immorality of his actions. There's nothing he can do about it, there's no willing them away under the circumstances and he certainly can't help the bloodlust that nips at the back of his mind like a needy child. So, he lets them stay, the teeth and the eyes just another intimidation tactic in the cruel game he was playing.

Once the skin on both sides of his throat is equally flayed, hanging on by a thin strip a couple inches below the curve of his neck, he sits up, taking one of Konishi's hands in his own. "Fingernails next?" Is the simple question, panic immediately replacing what little relief he had found at Gintoki's minute departure backward.

"N-No!" He stammers hastily out, words jumbled, sweaty, shaking hand slipping out of Gintoki's hold on it. "Please," he gasps, fumbly clasping the top of Gintoki's shirt, the other hand going to his perm, pulling his head marginally to the side. The man's heart is racing, blood flowing down his collarbone, staining the top lining of his tan yukata, the gold of his necklace tinted with a thin line of red. "I'll tell you― the man, the man I work for," the sentence breaks for him to catch a breath, "his name is Itou Sunada… he's a christian too, we all are… it's like a recruitment thing, you lose someone to a vampire you seek them him out and he lets you in, for revenge. The christianity is just a side thing― nothing about that is required, but everyone there is, so it's easy to fall just in line…" Konishi trails off, wincing at the frown of disapproval from the man still straddling his legs.

"Keep going."

"Y-yes, I― uh, there used to be a lot of us... all the people sheltered who lost a source of income with their loved one's death and didn't have anywhere to go, I'd say around a hundred. More than that, but around it. T-then after the incident, there's very few. Anyone who wasn't there lived, Sunada, me, fifteen or twenty others. We've gained a few since then, it's been a few months… lost a few too. Too scared to stay after what happened―"

"What was the incident?"

Konishi pauses, thinking, panting. "We kept dependents, the people who had nowhere else to go, in a few different locations… The main one, used for training sessions and mass meetings when Sunada was there, that one was attacked. Hundred of us, gone before anyone ever heard a scream…" He wipes previous tears from his cheeks that were now running into his open, angry wounds, saltiness stinging the exposed muscle. His fingers unfurled from Gintoki's hair, holding his neck as he spilled the details. "It was a warehouse, just off the side of a main road. Still pretty well travelled so we always entered in from the sewers below it…" Konishi's eyes widen at the look that crosses Gintoki's face, panic rising as he didn't know what to make of the realization. "Did… did I say something wrong?! I didn't mea―"

His jabbering is cut off by a fist curling in the bloodied collar of his yukata, drawing him near enough that the breath from Gintoki's words could be felt on his skin. "Here's what you're going to do next. I'm going to wrap up your neck, we're going back to Katsura's and you're going to explain the rest to us there. Understand?" Konishi nods once, all he can manage, tears peeking out in the shine of his eyes under Gintoki's glow. He stands, freeing the man under him from the hold of his legs before taking off his yukata and hooking it in the bend of his arm. Tearing both sleeves of the tan robes adorning the other, Gintoki hands him his own yukata. "Good, now get up and change into this."

Konishi does as told, legs shaking like a newborn deer. Gintoki allows him a bit of privacy, turning and walking down to the water, wetting one on the torn pieces then ringing it halfway out. When he's done, Konishi has the yukata on, held closed by the hand not clasping his neck. There's splotches of blood here and there that definitely stand out on the white, but nothing compared to his original garment.

Gintoki wipes where the blood had run down on his chest off with the wet cloth, cleaning him up enough that if someone saw him they wouldn't think his throat had almost been peeled clean off. He wraps the dry piece around his throat, a sorry excuse for a bandage.

"You'll be wrapped up better when we get back," he tucks the tip of the cloth into itself behind his head. "So long as you keep talking, of course." He adds, just to remind him that he wasn't out of this yet. Gintoki receives a strained nod in reply, throwing the ruined yukata down into the river, handing him the belt.

With a quick motion of his head, the two set back for the hideout, the budding feeling of excited nervousness for the first time in months growing quietly, turning around in his stomach.

It's well past one in the morning when Gintoki finally opens up the shoij to the apartment, the door of the wood grating against the track a little too loud for his liking. After locking it up behind him and slipping off his boots as soundlessly as he could, he makes his way carefully into the living room.

The TV is on but muted, sending flashing blue-gray colors across the quiet room of some old soap opera. The air is still, save for the kid's leveled breathing and the low hum of the refrigerator kicking on in the kitchen. Shinpachi's glasses are set aside on the table next to a nearly empty cup of water, pillows that usually stayed beneath Kagura's bed pulled out to the couch and supporting his head, the fluff of Sadaharu's fur between his toes. The dog snores gently at his feet, the scene so peaceful Gintoki thanks his lack of need for basic bodily functions, because he's sure if he had to swallow the small sound would break the stillness of the room, ruining its serenity.

Thankfully, there's no need for him to do anything other than slip carefully into his room, blood on his hands from earlier already washed off at Katsura's.

Green PJ's on and cool sheets across his colder skin, Gintoki settles into the night, many thoughts to organize before the meeting with his vice-commander the next evening.


End file.
